Biography

Hajrije Kolimja is an Albanian-born writer raised in the Midwest. She is the recipient of a Fulbright research and writing grant to Albania, where she created the country's first youth writing program and online writing lab. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was awarded the Taylor-Chehak Prize in Fiction from the University of Iowa, where she currently teaches literature. She is at work on a novel and short stories. In Albanian, her name means "a beautiful thing." In Turkish, it means "auspicious." In Arabic, it can mean either "freedom" or "mermaid" depending on how one pronounces it.