Claire Jiménez has won the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award, given annually to an outstanding work of fiction written by an American permanent resident, for What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez.
Jiménez’s novel, published last March by Grand Central, was previously longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. It follows a Puerto Rican family on Staten Island who believe they have spotted a long-lost relative on a reality show and travel to the show’s filming location in Boston.
In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Jiménez brings bravery to the page, and it’s her strong storytelling and humor that make this an outstanding debut.”
This year’s prize was judged by writers Xochitl Gonzalez, Alan Michael Parker, and Lynn Steger Strong. In a statement, they said, “Claire Jiménez has crafted a visceral work of art full of nuance, humor, and humanity, through incisive and loving character work, the finely calibrated unspooling of narrative, and the exquisite deployment of language, ranging from poetic prose to Spanglish to the sociolect of working-class Staten Island.”
Jiménez said, “I began writing this story a decade ago, a strange tale about the disappearance of a Puerto Rican girl from Staten Island and the women in her family who cannot stop looking for her. This novel is not only about a missing girl but also missing stories.”
The PEN/Faulkner Award was established in 1981. Previous winners include John Edgar Wideman for Philadelphia Fire, Ann Patchett for Bel Canto, and Yiyun Li for The Book of Goose.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
