From Salamanca to San Juan, Giannina Braschi’s awards and honors trace the reach of her books across both sides of the Atlantic. Academies of the Spanish language, scholars of American studies, a community of Ibero-American poets, a media group in Madrid, and her native city have all recognized her life’s work: a cross-genre literature that keeps changing forms, in Spanish, Spanglish, and English, and carries an abounding hope through every transformation.
“One of the most revolutionary voices in Latin America today.”
— PEN America
“Cutting-edge, influential, and even revolutionary.”
— Library of Congress, National Book Festival
Awards and Honors at a Glance
- New York · 2022 — Enrique Anderson Imbert National Award, North American Academy of the Spanish Language
- Baltimore · 2024 — Angela Y. Davis Award, American Studies Association
- San Juan · 2024 — Honoree for Literature and the Arts, City of San Juan
- Madrid · 2021 — Cambio16 Prize, Cambio16
- Salamanca · 2025 — Fray Luis de León Medal for Ibero-American Poetry (first woman to receive it)
Lifetime Awards and Honors
Enrique Anderson Imbert National Award, North American Academy of the Spanish Language (New York, 2022)
The jury of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE) chose Braschi unanimously, describing her as a writer “whose rich and bountiful career defies any simplifying classification.” In its citation, the Academy wrote:
“Her prolific career, which extends from groundbreaking research on Hispanic classics to her spectacular work as a renowned and award-winning creator, places her among the most innovative and influential voices of Hispanic letters in the United States. Braschi contributes to the dissemination of Hispanic culture and literature from the most avant-garde and invigorating perspective. She has left her imprint, not only on the Spanish but on the English-speaking world as well, given the prominence that some of her works have had in striking translations. Her writing reflects the richness of language taken to new linguistic and narrative heights by masterfully interweaving literary genres and linguistic explorations, in keeping with new forms of expression, of which she is a pioneer.”
Angela Y. Davis Award, American Studies Association (Baltimore, 2024)
The American Studies Association, the oldest and largest scholarly organization devoted to the study of U.S. cultures and histories, gives this award to those who put their work at the service of the public good. ASA President Mishuana Goeman cited
“the outstanding contribution [Braschi’s] work represents to American Studies and indeed, to the world.”
A year later, the ASA invited Braschi to headline the opening of its 2025 annual meeting in San Juan.
Read more · The ASA citation · En español
Honoree for Literature and the Arts, City of San Juan (2024)
The City of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, honored Braschi for literature and the arts, for lifting Puerto Rican culture around the world.
Cambio16 Prize (Madrid, 2021)
At the proposal of its editorial board, the Spanish newsmagazine Cambio16 honored Braschi for a life’s work creating a literature of inspiration and hope. Earlier honorees include Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough. Jorge Neri Bonilla, Cambio16’s CEO, wrote of Braschi:
“Her work reflects the divine value of ordinary gestures, the daily madness, habits, and customs that fill our lives. For this reason, she is unsettling and emotional: An agitator with soft forms and a gentle manner, who makes paradox her philosophy of life because it is precisely through contradiction that we can appreciate difference, and through activism, the actions that can transform the future.”
Read more · Interview (en español) · Television interview (en español)
Fray Luis de León Medal for Ibero-American Poetry (Salamanca, 2025)
The Encuentro de Poetas Iberoamericanos, sponsored by the City of Salamanca, awarded Braschi its medal for Ibero-American poetry. She is the first woman to receive the award.
Other Awards and Honors
In 2025, Rosalía Arteaga, former President of Ecuador, named Braschi a Woman of the Year, alongside Carmen Boullosa and Cecilia Vicuña (read more). In 2024 she received a Borimix Award at Puerto Rico Fest, together with Sonia Manzano and Willie Perdomo (read more). The Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española has celebrated her legacy (leer más). El Diario/La Prensa named her an Outstanding Latina. In 1999, she won the PEN Open Book Award from PEN America for Yo-Yo Boing!.
Fellowships, Grants, and Residencies
Braschi’s writing has been supported by fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and by grants from the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, the Reed Foundation, the InterAmericas Foundation, and the Painted Bride Art Center. Early in her career she held a Danforth Scholarship, won a poetry award from the Instituto de Puerto Rico en Nueva York, received support from the Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana in Madrid, and received a Rutgers University’s Faculty Award. She has been writer-in-residence at Colgate University, Art Omi, and the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby, Sweden.
On receiving theANLE’s National Award, Braschi said:
“Whether I write in Spanish, Spanglish, or English, and no matter the genre, I always have these Quixotic ideals in my heart and in my mind.”
More about her life, work, awards and honors: Biography · Ways into the Work · Critical Studies · The Books