Victoria Chang, a distinguished faculty member at Antioch University’s low-residency master of fine arts writing program is the winner of the 2023 Chowdhury Prize in Literature. The annual, international mid-career prize for writers includes $20,000. Professor Chang is the first poet to win the award.
This prize is awarded to an accomplished mid-career writer considered to have significant potential for future achievement. The Chowdhury Prize in Literature is awarded by the department of English at the University of Southern California through the auspices of the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Foundation and in collaboration with Kenyon College and The Kenyon Review.
Chang was chosen in part because “her writing walks the line between her personal experience and the core humanity we all share,” according to the prize committee.
“It’s such an honor to receive the Chowdhury Prize in Literature because it is a prize that acknowledges the work I’ve made but also really focuses on the future, on possibility,” Chang said. “So much of being a writer is writing on a piece of paper alone, in isolation, without recognition or encouragement. The Chowdhury Prize in Literature provides that important gentle hand on my back to keep going, to keep putting words together in interesting ways, to keep trying to translate the human experience, my own unique personal experiences.”
Chang is the author of six collections of poetry, including the award-winning OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022)
Victoria Chang earned a bachelor’s degree in Asian studies from the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree in Asian studies from Harvard University, an MBA from Stanford University, and a master of fine arts degree in writing from Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina.