NEW YORK (AP) — Edwidge Danticat is this year's winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a lifetime achievement honor named for the late writer Bernard Malamud.

Danticat, a Haitian-American author who writes often about memory and identity, is known for her novel-in-stories “The Dew Breaker” and for such collections as “Krik? Krak!” and “Everything Inside,” which in 2020 won the Story Prize for outstanding short fiction.

“Many of my short stories pay homage to the oral tradition I was steeped in as a child in Haiti and as an immigrant in the United States,” Danticat, 54, said in a statement this week. "The short story has also been a unique space for me to experiment, explore, and grow as a storyteller, which makes this award even more gratifying.”

Previous winners of the Malamud prize include George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li.