Good news, fiction lovers! The Center for Fiction just announced their annual First Novel Prize shortlist. The list was whittled down from a longer list of 26 authors by a panel of esteemed writers, including Jeffery Renard Allen, Katie Kitamura, Rachel Kushner, Dana Spiotta, and Julie Lekstrom Himes.
Created in 2006 to celebrate “the best first novel of the year,” the award comes with a $10,000 prize. All shortlisted authors will receive $1,000. Congratulations to all of these talented debut novelists!
Asymmetry
by Lisa Halliday
Simon & Schuster
Confessions of the Fox
by Jordy Rosenberg
One World
Freshwater
by Akwaeke Emezi
Grove Press
The Parking Lot Attendant
by Nafkote Tamirat
Henry Holt & Co.
Pretend I’m Dead
by Jen Beagin
Scribner
There There
by Tommy Orange
Alfred A. Knopf
Trenton Makes
by Tadzio Koelb
Doubleday
You can read more about the shortlisted authors and their work over at the Center for Fiction website.
Amy Brady is the Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books and Deputy Publisher of Guernica Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Oprah, The Village Voice, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.