The 10 winners of the 39th Whiting Awards, each of which comes with a $50,000 prize, were announced at a ceremony at the New-York Historical Society on April 10. The event featured a keynote by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Natalie Diaz, and a reading by this year's winners, emceed by New Yorker staff writer and book critic Parul Sehgal, will be held at McNally Jackson Seaport on April 11.
The 2024 Whiting Award winners are:
- Aaliyah Bilal (Fiction)
- Yoon Choi (Fiction)
- Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Drama)
- Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (Drama)
- Elisa Gonzalez (Poetry)
- Taylor Johnson (Poetry)
- Gothataone Moeng (Fiction)
- Charif Shanahan (Poetry)
- Javier Zamora (Nonfiction and Poetry)
- Ada Zhang (Fiction)
The Whiting Awards are given annually to emerging writers of drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and a total of $10 million has been awarded to 390 fiction and nonfiction writers, poets, and playwrights to date. Previous winners include Elif Batuman, Jen Beagin, Anne Boyer, Jericho Brown, Rita Bullwinkel,Hernan Diaz, Michael R. Jackson, Catherine Lacey, Yiyun Li, Ling Ma, Alice McDermott, Sigrid Nunez, Lucy Sante, Ocean Vuong, and Colson Whitehead.
“As the world opens up, these brilliant writers open up our world,” said Courtney Hodell, director of literary programs, in a statement. “From fresh cultural criticism to poems of place and personhood and appetite to fiction that brings surreal wit to compassionate portraits, their work is the spring thaw of the mind."
