News - Literary Awards

News - Literary Awards

April 14, 2022

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award announced HADES, ARGENTINA by Daniel Loedel as one of 20 debut novels to make the award’s 2022 longlist. The award “honors an outstanding debut novel published in the preceding calendar year. Symbolized by a three-dimensional compass, the award is a tribute to writers who have navigated their way through the maze of imagination and delivered a great read, taking the reader someplace new.” Riverhead Books published the novel on January 12, 2021.

April 14, 2022

WHO WILL PAY REPARATIONS ON MY SOUL? author Jesse McCarthy is a 2022 Whiting Award winner. The selection committee writes: “Jesse McCarthy’s thought arrows through time periods, belief systems, literary movements, and aesthetics. His observations on the intersections of history, pop culture, and Black personhood roll over us like an incoming storm of gorgeous sentences. He is not afraid to stake out arguments and hold positions, but he is more interested in exploration than in polemic and wants above all to honor political and literary complexity. These are clutch-your-throat essays, revelatory, resonant, and uncompromising. Dazzling is the only word.” Liveright published the book on March 30, 2021.

April 14, 2022

ALL OUR NAMES author Dinaw Mengestu is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow for Fiction. Fellowships were awarded “to a diverse group of 180 exceptional individuals. Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2500 applicants, these successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.” Knopf published ALL OUR NAMES on March 4, 2014.

April 14, 2022

NOW BEACON, NOW SEA author Christopher Sorrentino is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow for General Nonfiction. Fellowships were awarded “to a diverse group of 180 exceptional individuals. Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2500 applicants, these successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.” Catalpult published NOW BEACON, NOW SEA on September 7, 2021.

April 8, 2022

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award announced THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones, Jr. as one of 20 debut novels to make the award’s 2022 longlist. The award “honors an outstanding debut novel published in the preceding calendar year. Symbolized by a three-dimensional compass, the award is a tribute to writers who have navigated their way through the maze of imagination and delivered a great read, taking the reader someplace new.” G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the novel on January 5, 2021.

April 8, 2022

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award announced PARIS IS A PARTY, PARIS IS A GHOST by David Hoon Kim as one of 20 debut novels to make the award’s 2022 longlist. The award “honors an outstanding debut novel published in the preceding calendar year. Symbolized by a three-dimensional compass, the award is a tribute to writers who have navigated their way through the maze of imagination and delivered a great read, taking the reader someplace new.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the novel on August 3, 2021.

April 8, 2022

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award announced THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV by Dawnie Walton as one of 20 debut novels to make the award’s 2022 longlist. The award “honors an outstanding debut novel published in the preceding calendar year. Symbolized by a three-dimensional compass, the award is a tribute to writers who have navigated their way through the maze of imagination and delivered a great read, taking the reader someplace new.” 37 Ink published the novel on March 30, 2021.

March 25, 2022

THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones, Jr. is a finalist for The Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. The award “celebrates the future of LGBTQ literature by awarding a prize to an outstanding first novel or story collection.” Winners will be announced via a virtual ceremony on May 11. G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the book on January 5, 2021.

March 25, 2022

CHINA ROOM by Sunjeev Sahota was shortlisted for The Rathbones Folio 2022 Prize. The prize “celebrates the best literary talent from the UK and around the world,” and “is also known as the ‘writer’s prize’ – the only major literary award for which all the books in contention are selected and judged by an academy of peers.” Viking published the novel on July 13, 2021.

March 25, 2022

EVERYBODY by Olivia Laing was longlisted for The Rathbones Folio 2022 Prize. The prize “celebrates the best literary talent from the UK and around the world,” and “is also known as the ‘writer’s prize’ – the only major literary award for which all the books in contention are selected and judged by an academy of peers.” W. W. Norton & Company published the book on May 4, 2021.