Aspen Words announced on Monday the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize finalists.
The finalists are: “Calling for a Blanket Dance” by Oscar Hokeah, “How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water” by Angie Cruz, “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories” by Jamil Jan Kochai, “The Consequences” by Manuel Muñoz and “All This Could Be Different” by Sarah Thankam Mathews.
The Aspen Words Literary Prize is a $35,000 annual award for an influential work of fiction that “illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture,” according to the Aspen Words website.
Open to authors of any nationality, the award is one of the largest literary prizes in the country and one of the few focused exclusively on fiction with a social impact.
This year’s shortlist features three novels and two short story collections.
Oscar Hokeah’s “Calling for a Blanket Dance” is his first novel. A citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and also from Latino heritage, Hokeah’s short stories have been published in the South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South and Red Ink Magazine. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through the Institute of American Indian Arts and is also a winner of the Taos Summer Writers Conference’s Native Writer Award.
Angie Cruz authored the novels “Soledad,” “Let It Rain Coffee” and “Dominicana” — which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and also a Good Morning America Book Club pick. Her latest novel, “How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water,” is shortlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.
Finalist Jamil Jan Kochai was born in an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, but he originally hails from Logar, Afghanistan. His short stories…
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