Oscar Hokeah (born 25 December 1975) is a Native American writer, best known for his debut novel Calling for a Blanket Dance (2022), which won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and was an Aspen Words Literary Prize finalist in 2023. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and the Institute of American Indian Arts, he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation/Society. It is administered by PEN America. Mary Welsh Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.
Rilla Askew is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in Poteau, in the Sans Bois Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, and grew up in the town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Navarre Scotte Momaday was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance.
Mohsin Hamid is a British Pakistani novelist, writer and brand consultant. His novels are Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), Exit West (2017), and The Last White Man (2022).
David John Chariandy is a Canadian writer and academic, presently working as a Professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. His 2017 novel Brother won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and Toronto Book Award.
The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection is awarded by the PEN America "to exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories ... represent distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise." The winner is selected by a panel of PEN Members made up of three writers or editors. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize was originally named the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. The prize awards the debut writer a cash award of US$25,000.
Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian fiction writer and video artist, best known for their novels Freshwater, Pet, and their New York Times bestselling novel The Death of Vivek Oji. Emezi is a generalist who writes speculative fiction, romance, memoir and poetry for both young adults and adults with mostly LGBT themes. Their work has earned them several awards and nominations including the Otherwise Award and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2021, Time featured them as a Next Generation Leader.
John Smelcer is an American poet and novelist whose claims to Native American (Ahtna) heritage and citizenship have been the subject of multiple controversies.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is the debut novel by Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, published by Penguin Press on June 4, 2019. An epistolary novel, it is written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother. It was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction.
Jamel Brinkley is an American writer. His debut story collection, A Lucky Man (2018), was the winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. It was also a finalist for the National Book Award, The Story Prize, the John Leonard Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. He currently teaches fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Memorial is the debut novel by Bryan Washington. It was published by Riverhead Books on October 27, 2020, to acclaim from book critics.
Brandon Hobson is an American writer. His novel, Where the Dead Sit Talking, was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Abundance is a 2021 novel by Jakob Guanzon about wealth inequality and human worth. It was published by Greywolf Press and is Guanzon's first novel. It covers concepts including inherited medical debt, poverty, food security, criminal justice system, and illegal drug trade. In 2021, the novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.
The Other Americans is a mystery novel written by Moroccan American novelist Laila Lalami. The novel was published in 2019 by Pantheon Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Jason Mott is an American novelist and poet. His fourth novel, Hell of a Book, won the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.
The Five Wounds is the debut novel by Kirstin Valdez Quade, published by W. W. Norton & Company on March 30, 2021. It is an expansion of Quade's short story of the same name, which was first published in The New Yorker and later collected in her debut short story collection, Night at the Fiestas (2015). The Five Holy Wounds suffered by Jesus Christ during the crucifixion is used as a metaphor in the novel.
The Aspen Words Literary Prize, established in 2018, is an annual literary award presented by Aspen Words, a literary center in Aspen, Colorado. The prize is presented to an author for "an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.” Winners receive a $35,000 prize.
If I Survive You is the debut book by Jonathan Escoffery, published on September 6, 2022 by MCD Books. It is a collection of eight interlinked short stories that follow the struggles of an immigrant family from Jamaica who build a new home in Miami. The story's main character is Trelawny, an American-born son of immigrants who grapples with identity, familial and cultural issues through various phases of adolescence and adulthood.
Jonathan Escoffery is an American writer. His debut novel, If I Survive You, was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction and shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, among other honors. The novel was well received by critics with reviews applauding Escoffery's humor, narrative style, and exploration of identity in the immigrant experience.