Rumaan Alam, N.K. Jemisin, Raven Leilani, and Jerry Seinfeld are all in the running for the first-ever Gotham Book Prize, given to a book “that either is about New York City or takes place in New York City.”
Alam made the shortlist for Leave the World Behind, which was previously a finalist for the National Book Award, while Jemisin was nominated for her critically acclaimed fantasy novel The City We Became.
Leilani’s Kirkus Prize–winning Luster made the list, as did James McBride’s Deacon King Kong, a Kirkus Prize finalist.
Two nonfiction books were named finalists for the award: Seinfeld’s Is This Anything? and David Paul Kuhn’s The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution.
Rounding out the shortlist were Christopher Beha’s The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, David Goodwillie’s Kings County, Debra Jo Immergut’s You Again, and Amy Poeppel’s Musical Chairs.
Philanthropists Bradley Tusk and Howard Wolfson announced they were starting the Gotham Book Prize last July. “As New York begins a difficult recovery from [Covid-19] we want to do our part to honor our city’s writers and support their work,” they said.
The winner of the award, which comes with a $50,000 cash prize, will be announced in March.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
