Claire Jimenez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York.[1] She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) and the novel What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central, 2023),[2] which was favorably reviewed by the Associated Press, USA Today,[3] and Kirkus Reviews,[4] and won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[5][6] Jimenez was also named a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards[7] and won Best Latino Book of 2019 by NBC News.[7]
Jimenez co-founded the Puerto Rican Literature Project in 2019.[8] In 2019 her book Staten Island Stories won the Hornblower Award for a first book from the New York Society Library.[9] She has an MFA from Vanderbilt University[7] and in 2022 Jimenez earned a Ph.D. in English with a concentration in ethnic studies and digital humanities from University of Nebraska–Lincoln.[9]
Jimenez is an assistant professor and McCausland Faculty Fellow at University of South Carolina.[10]
Her essays have appeared in Afro-Hispanic Review and The Rumpus.[8]