Sana Krasikov '01 has won the 2009 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her debut short story collection, "One More Year" (2008, Spiegel and Grau). Krasikov was one of five finalists for the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize, one of the largest literary prizes in the world.

Krasikov is a native of Ukraine who grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and the United States. Her stories reflect the experiences of Russian and Georgian immigrants to America. She will read from her work at Cornell this November as part of the Creative Writing Program Centennial Plus Five Reading Series.

"I had Sana in my Narrative Writing class," said Cornell professor of English Helena Maria Viramontes. "Even then, her talent shone bright. I knew she had something extremely special."

After earning her Cornell B.A. as a dual major in American history and literature and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 2005, Krasikov studied in Moscow for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship.

She also was nominated this year for a National Magazine Award for her short story "Asal," appearing in the summer 2008 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her other honors include an O. Henry Award. Her fiction has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Zoetrope, and Cornell's literary magazine, Epoch. She lives in New York City and is currently working on a novel.

The Sami Rohr Prize, established in 2006, is awarded to an emerging writer of a book of Jewish interest and exceptional literary merit. The Jewish Book Council administers the annual prize, which is given to writers of fiction and nonfiction books in alternate years.