Winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, a national competition juried by the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The River of Lost Voices captures both the magic and sorrow of life in Santa Cruz Verapaz, a small town in the northern mountains of Guatemala. In each of his stories, Mark Brazaitis gives voice to Guatemala's indigenous population--people who speak Pokomchi and Cakchiquel, languages and cultures often buried in the crush of assimilation. Through their voices, the author uncovers tales of lives redeemed and lost in the tumult of history.
Mark Brazaitis is the author of four books, including The Other Language, which won the 2008 ABZ Press First Book Prize, judged by Heather McHugh. Poems in the collection first appeared in The Sun, Witness, Notre Dame Review, Poetry East, Poetry International, and other literary magazines. One of the poems in the collection, "Soccer Until Dusk," is featured in Uncommon Journeys, a publication of the Peace Corps, and on the Peace Corps World Wise Schools' Web site.
Brazaitis is also the author of The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, a novel published in 2000 by Van Neste Books. His latest work of fiction, An American Affair: Stories, won the 2004 George Garrett Fiction Prize from Texas Review Press and was published in 2006.
A former Peace Corps volunteer and technical trainer, Brazaitis is an associate professor of English and the director of creative writing at West Virginia University. Born in East Cleveland, Ohio, he lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, with his wife and two daughters.
