Swansea University revealed the longlist for the annual Dylan Thomas Prize, with Nathan Harris, Patricia Lockwood, and Caleb Azumah Nelson among the authors in contention for the award.
Harris was nominated for his debut novel The Sweetness of Water, which was previously longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence.
Lockwood made the longlist for No One Is Talking About This, a Booker Prize finalist, and Nelson was nominated for Open Water, which won the Costa First Novel Award.
Other fiction authors nominated for the prize were Brandon Taylor for Filthy Animals, Dantiel W. Moniz for Milk Blood Heat, Anuk Arudpragasam for A Passage North, Tice Cin for Keeping the House, Fiona Mozley for Hot Stew, Megan Nolan for Acts of Desperation, and Helen Oyeyemi for Peaces.
Two poets made the longlist: Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe for Auguries of a Minor God, and Desiree C. Bailey for her National Book Award–finalist collection What Noise Against the Cane.
The Dylan Thomas Prize, launched in 2006, is given annually to an English-language book written by an author under the age of 40. Previous winners have included Claire Vaye Watkins for Battleborn, Max Porter for Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, and Raven Leilani for Luster.
The shortlist for this year’s prize will be revealed on March 31, with the winner announced at a ceremony in Swansea, Wales, on May 12.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
