Middle row: Valeria Luiselli (credit: @DiegoBerruecos), Juan Felipe Herrera (credit: Carlos Puma), Maxine Hong Kingston (credit: Michael Lionstar)
Bottom row: Shahrnush Parsipur, Chris Abani, Nona Fernández (credit: Daniel Corvillón)
World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, has announced finalists for the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. This prestigious award recognizes significant contributions to world literature and has a history as a lead-up to the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The nominees (with representative texts noted) for the 2024 Neustadt Prize, which carries a $50,000 cash award, are as follows:
Chris Abani (Nigeria) / Sanctificum
Angie Cruz (U.S.) / How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
Ananda Devi (Mauritius) / Eve out of Her Ruins
Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany) / The End of Days
Nona Fernández (Chile) / The Twilight Zone
Juan Felipe Herrera (U.S.) / Every Day We Get More Illegal
Maxine Hong Kingston (U.S.) / The Woman Warrior
Valeria Luiselli (Mexico) / Lost Children Archive
Shahrnush Parsipur (Iran) / Women without Men
The finalists’ full bios can be found on the Neustadt website—neustadtprize.org.
Nine Neustadt jurors, all creative writers, chose the finalists; they will meet to choose the winner at the 2023 Neustadt Lit Fest, scheduled for Oct. 23–25. The literary festival is hosted by World Literature Today and the University of Oklahoma.
“We live in troubled times, and the Neustadt Prize, recognizing the best writers in the world, is a beacon of hope for the human adventure,” said Robert Con Davis-Undiano, executive director of World Literature Today, the sponsor of the prize. “Literature enhances our ability to recognize who we are and who we can become,” said Davis-Undiano, “and the work of the Neustadt jury year after year reflects the ongoing importance of literature in our lives.”
The prizewinner announcement will be made on Tuesday, Oct. 24, during the Neustadt Lit Fest, which this year honors Gene Luen Yang, laureate of the 2023 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Festival events are free and open to the public.
The Neustadt Prize is the first international literary award of its scope to originate in the United States and is one of very few international prizes for which poets, novelists, screenwriters and playwrights are equally eligible. Since 1970, it has been awarded every other year to a living writer in recognition of a significant body of work. Past winners include Gabriel García Márquez, Czesław Miłosz and Edwidge Danticat. The 2022 Neustadt Prize winner was Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop.
Winners of the Neustadt Prize are awarded $50,000, a silver replica of an eagle feather, a prize certificate and a festival hosted in their honor. A generous endowment from the Neustadt family supports the award. To learn more about the Neustadt prizes, visit neustadtprize.org.