Joseph Earl Thomas, Patrick Chamoiseau win at US Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize 2024

Joseph Earl Thomas and Patrick Chamoiseau were feted at the US Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize 2024 in New York, USA on Tuesday, December 10, 2024

The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize is an annual award presented by The Center for Fiction, a non-profit organization in New York, USA, since 2006. It recognizes the year’s best debut novel as selected by a panel of distinguished American writers and carries an award of $15,000. Previous winners include De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Tiphanie Yanique, Junot Diaz, Margaret Wrinkle, and Raven Leilani. Noor Naga and Wole Soyinka were honoured in 2022.

The 2024 journey started when a longlist from the 144 submitted titles was announced on Wednesday, July 31 before the shortlist was made public on Wednesday, October 9. On Tuesday, the jury of Merve Emre, Raven Leilani, Jonathan Lethem, and Tyriek White announced Joseph Earl Thomas’ novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer as the winner. They described the novel as “a powerful examination of everyday black life—health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics.”

Another honoree was author Patrick Chamoiseau, who received The Center for Fiction Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award, introduced by author Daniel Alarcón. Kathryn Belden, Vice President and Editorial Director of Scribner, received the Medal for Editorial Excellence, introduced by author Jesmyn Ward. Chamoiseau is a poet, novelist, and essayist from Martinique whose multifaceted oeuvre, translated worldwide, has won numerous prizes including the Prix Goncourt (1992), the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe (1993), and the Prix Marguerite Yourcenar (2023). His work involves an aesthetic exploration of creolization and of relational poetics in the contemporary world. He is widely recognized as one of the most important literary figures of the Caribbean and a major writer in the international arena.

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