Ada Ferrer

Ada Ferrer
Ferrer in 2026
Born
Havana, Cuba
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationVassar College 1984
University of Texas at Austin 1988
University of Michigan 1995
OccupationHistorian
Years active1995–present
EmployerPrinceton University
Notable workFreedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, Cuba: An American History
Awards

Ada Ferrer is a Cuban-American historian. She joined the faculty at Princeton University as the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History in July 2024. She was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book Cuba: An American History.

Early life

Ferrer was born in Havana, Cuba, and migrated to the United States with her mother in 1963 in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. She grew up in West New York, New Jersey. She holds an AB degree in English from Vassar College, 1984, an MA degree in history from University of Texas at Austin, 1988, and a PhD in history from the University of Michigan, 1995.

Career

Ferrer is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and Latin American Studies at Princeton University. Before joining Princeton, she served as a professor of history and Latin American studies at New York University.

Ferrer received the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize for her book Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation and Revolution 1868–1898, She won the 2015 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for her book Freedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution. The book also won the Friedrich Katz, Wesley Logan, and James A. Rawley prizes from the American Historical Association and the Haiti Illumination Prize from the Haitian Studies Association.

In 2021, Ferrer published Cuba: An American History, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History and was a finalist for the 2022 Cundill History Prize.

She is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow.

Keeper of My Kin was a finalist for the 2026 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction.

Bibliography

Books

Essays and reporting

References

  1. ↑ "Board approves nine faculty appointments". Princeton University. 2024-03-29. Retrieved 2024-03-30.
  2. 1 2 "The 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner in History". Pulitzer Prize. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  3. ↑ "2022 Pulitzer Prize in History Awarded to NYU's Nicole Eustace and Ada Ferrer". .nyu.edu.
  4. ↑ "2022 Pulitzer Prizes in arts and letters go to 'Fat Ham' and 'The Netenyahus'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  5. ↑ Ferrer, Ada (March 1, 2021). "My Brother's Keeper". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 7, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Ada Ferrer, Professor Of History". NYU History Department. Retrieved 2017-07-01.
  7. ↑ "Ada Ferrer". www.afrocubaweb.com. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  8. ↑ "Berkshire Conference of Women Historians". web.mnstate.edu. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  9. ↑ "Congratulations to Ada Ferrer, Winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". www.gilderlehrman.org. Yale University. 5 February 2016. Archived from the original on 3 August 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  10. ↑ "NYU professor wins the Frederick Douglass Book Prize". Yale News. November 6, 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  11. ↑ ""These are books of real consequence" – Cundill History Prize finalists announced". Cundill History Prize. October 20, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2025.
  12. ↑ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Ada Ferrer".
  13. ↑ "Finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize Revealed". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2026-08-25.

Further reading

Critical studies and reviews of Ferrer's work

Freedom's mirror

Insurgent Cuba