Biography

Hajrije Kolimja is an Albanian-born writer raised in the Midwest. A Fulbright awardee, she holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the recipient of the Taylor-Chehak Prize in Fiction, and her writing can most recently be found in F(r)iction. At work on a novel and short stories, she serves as the Graduate Program Coordinator of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 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.