The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize

"God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer is a powerful examination of every day black life—of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics."

"Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivate young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching."

"The Fertile Earth is a vast, ambitious debut that is equal parts historical, political, and human, with the enduring ties of love and family loyalty at its heart. Who can be loved? What are the costs of transgressions? How can justice be measured, and who will be alive to bear witness?"

"Spanning two decades and moving through the hotbeds of the African diaspora, They Dream in Gold is an epic yet intimate exploration of the migrant hunger for belonging and a powerful, intergenerational testament to our shared humanity, for lovers of Tara Stringfellow’s Memphis and Abi Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice."

"At sixteen, Eva meets Jamie by chance... Carried forcefully along by Clare Sestanovich’s exquisite prose, these two characters are pulled into separate spheres but circle the same questions: how to define their values and find their purpose, how to create a sense of self while discovering what they owe to society and to the cause of justice. These reckonings propel a surprising story of intimacy across time, exploring the alchemy of identity, the mystery of destiny, and the difficult journey of finding faith—in yourself, and in the world."

"From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life—from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep."

"Ruminative and propulsive, Ledia Xhoga’s debut novel, Misinterpretation, interrogates the darker legacies of family and country, and the boundary between compassion and self-preservation."

"The Red Grove is a story about mothers, daughters, and sisters, about the dangers of being a woman in this world, and about the flawed, fierce choices we make to protect what we love."

"Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others."

"Structured as a series of one-sided phone calls from our spunky, sarcastic narrator, Luciana, to her older sister, Mari... Oye unfolds like the most fascinating and entertaining conversation you’ve ever eavesdropped on: a rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly unique novel that celebrates the beauty revealed and resilience required when rewriting your own story."