Author Melissa Rivero Wins the New American Voices Award

Author Melissa Rivero Wins the New American Voices Award
Winner, Melissa Rivero

Congratulations to Melissa Rivero, author of The Affairs of the Falcóns, and winner of the 2019 New American Voices Award! Congratulations to our two finalists, Eugenia Kim and Angie Kim for their work and contributions.

Rivero was awarded $5,000 for her debut novel illuminating the complexity of the human experience as told by an immigrant. In Rivero's novel, Ana Falcón and her family made their way to New York City in the 1990s after facing economic and political strife in Peru. However, their lack of legal immigration status, as well as other struggles, left them with more hardships to overcome. How much more can Ana and her family take before packing up and returning to Peru?

Rivero was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She became a U.S. citizen in her twenties after being undocumented for most of her life. Her writing has taken her to the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, and the VONA/Voices Workshops. Rivero is a graduate of NYU and Brooklyn Law School, and she currently works on the legal team of a start-up.

Fall for the Book and the Institute for Immigration Research created the New American Voices Award to expose immigrant writing that is often underrepresented in publishing. 

Thank you to our judges, Reyna Grande, Alia Malek, and E.C. Osondu for your contributions!