The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize
As the season of literary awards comes to its climax, one of the most exciting and optimistic of the prizes highlights emerging literary talent. Each year, the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize honors the best long-form debut work of fiction. Following the winners and shortlisters for this award is a great way to discover new voices and keep up-and-coming writers on your radar. Recent winners of this prestigious award include Kirstin Valdez Quade (The Five Wounds) and Raven Leilani (Luster). Congratulations to this year's winner and finalists, listed below with a description from the Center for each book.
7 books
THE WINNER: "A poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation."
Cuss Whisperer & National Book Critics Circle
We Are a Haunting
Tyriek White"A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise."
Cuss Whisperer & National Book Critics CircleHardcover, 2023
$26.00Member price:$13.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Shortlisted
Moonrise Over New Jessup
Jamila Minnicks"It’s 1957 and Alice has just arrived in the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. After she falls in love with Raymond, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s status quo and threatens the couple’s place in the community, she must find a way to balance her support for his work with her desire to protect the town from upheaval."
Hardcover, 2023
$28.00Member price:$14.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Shortlisted
Clint Smith & Nicole Chung | @nicolechung on Bluesky
Family Lore
Elizabeth Acevedo"Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces—one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come."
Clint Smith & Nicole Chung | @nicolechung on BlueskyHardcover, 2023
$30.00Member price:$15.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Shortlisted
Night Wherever We Go
Tracey Rose Peyton"..Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman’s individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America’s gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power."
Hardcover, 2023
$27.99Member price:$13.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Shortlisted
Pay as You Go
Eskor David Johnson"An exuberant, fantastical odyssey, Pay As You Go wonders if what we’re searching for is ever really out there. Its pages—surreal, biting, and teeming with life—announce the startling talents of Eskor David Johnson, who knows that all any of us really want is a place to rest our head."
Out of stock
Shortlisted
Lily Meyer &
Lookout
Christine Byl"Lookout offers a gripping dual coming-of-age... Lookout brings to life a family coming out to itself, at home in a new and nuanced American West."
Powell's Books
Hardcover, 2023
$25.95Member price:$12.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Y/N
Esther Yi"A young woman’s growing obsession with a KPop singer, Moon, distracts her from an unsatisfying life as she pours her ineffable desire into writing fanfiction, allowing the reader to play out an intimate relationship with the star. When Moon disappears, the woman flies from Berlin to Seoul to look for him, eventually landing in the headquarters of the Kafkaesque entertainment company that manages the boyband. In time, art and real life approach their final convergence."
Min Jin Lee & Katy WaldmanHardcover, 2023
$26.00Member price:$13.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book