Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist Announced
Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute, has announced the 16 titles long listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, a $35,000 award for a work of fiction that "illuminates a vital contemporary issue."
All 16 longlisted titles are novels, and eight of them are debuts. The jury for the prize is made up of Angie Cruz, Danielle Evans, Ann Friedman, Kiese Laymon and Pádraig Ó Tuama. In the coming weeks, the jury will determine the five finalists and one winner.
The Aspen Words Literary Prize longlist is:
- Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Counterpoint Press)
- What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
- The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan (HMH Books)
- The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam (Scribner)
- What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy (Tin House)
- A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies (HMH Books)
- Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng (Simon & Schuster)
- Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin)
- Abundance by Jakob Guanzon (Graywolf Press)
- The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper Collins)
- Hell of a Book by Jason Mott (Dutton)
- Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen (Knopf)
- Bewilderment by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton)
- The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (W.W. Norton)
- Bewilderness by Karen Tucker (Catapult)
- The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton (37 Ink)