The New York Public Library unveiled the shortlist for this year’s Young Lions Fiction Award, given annually to an American author aged 35 or younger.
Mateo Askaripour was named a finalist for Black Buck, his satirical novel about a Black salesman at a predominantly White New York startup. The book was previously longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.
Alexandra Kleeman made the shortlist for Something New Under the Sun, which follows a writer on the set of his novel’s film adaptation.
Tom Lin’s The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, made the shortlist, as did Dantiel W. Moniz’s Milk Blood Heat, which was a finalist for both the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.
Kalani Pickhart was named a finalist for the timely I Will Die in a Foreign Land, her debut novel about the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution.
The judges for this year’s prize are writers Venita Blackburn, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, and Catherine Lacey, who won the award last year for Pew.
The Young Lions prize was established in 2001; founders included author Rick Moody and actor and writer Ethan Hawke. Past winners have included Colson Whitehead for John Henry Days and Bryan Washington for Lot.
The winner of this year’s award will be announced on June 16.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
