James Cañón

"Cañón’s strong and simple writing, which is touched by humor and magic realism, never falters.”

— The New Yorker

James was born and raised in Colombia. After majoring in Advertising in Bogotá, he moved to New York to study English. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

His debut novel, Tales from the Town of Widows & Chronicles from the Land of Men, has been published in over twenty countries. It won Le Prix du Premier Roman Étranger 2008 (Best First Foreign Novel Prize) and Le Prix des Lecteurs Vincennes 2008, and was a finalist for both the 2008 Edmund White Fiction Award, and a 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Best Debut Fiction. The American School Library Journal chose it as one of the “Ten Best Adult Books of the year for HS students."

James is the recipient of the Henfield Prize for Excellence in Fiction, a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and awards from the Queens Council on the Arts, the New York Urban Artist Initiative, and the U.S. National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. He’s currently at work on a new novel.