The New Literary Project announced the shortlist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, given annually to “a mid-career author of fiction who has earned an extraordinarily distinguished reputation and garnered the widespread appreciation of readers.”
Lauren Groff was named a finalist for the award. Groff has been a finalist for the Kirkus Prize twice, for Fates and Furies and Florida, and a National Book Award finalist three times. Her latest novel, Matrix, has won critical praise, with a reviewer for Kirkus writing, “Groff’s trademarkworthy sentences bring vivid buoyancy to a magisterial story.”
Jason Mott, whose novel Hell of a Book won the National Book Award, made the shortlist for the prize, as did Percival Everett (I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Half an Inch of Water); Everett is the most recent winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.
Christopher Beha, whose most recent novel, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, was longlisted for the National Book Award, was named a finalist, along with Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation and Intimacies.
The Joyce Carol Oates Prize was established in 2017. Previous winners have included T. Geronimo Johnson, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Daniel Mason, and Danielle Evans. The winner of this year’s award will be announced next month.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
