Darrell Kinsey has won the Center for Fiction’s 2025 First Novel Prize for Natch.
Kinsey’s novel, published in April by the University of Iowa Press, follows the title character, a 29-year-old man with a tree removal business, who meets Asha, a convenience store worker and aspiring therapist; the two must face reality after she becomes pregnant with Natch’s child. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a melancholy story of love and loss with a memorable narrator.”
This year’s award was judged by the authors Xochitl Gonzalez, Adam Haslett, Tracy O’Neill, and Joseph Earl Thomas. Haslett said in a statement, “In this year’s winner, Natch, readers will discover a work of art that renders in clear-sighted, almost crystalline prose a world few of us have visited, and fewer still have understood with the acumen and love Darrell Kinsey displays on nearly every page. Like all great fiction, it’s both a pleasure and an education.”
The other finalists for this year’s award were Colwill Brown for We Pretty Pieces of Flesh, Rickey Fayne for The Devil Three Times, Justin Haynes for Ibis, Alejandro Heredia for Loca, Mariam Rahmani for Liquid, and Shubha Sunder for Optional Practical Training.
The First Novel Prize, which comes with a cash award of $15,000, was established in 2006. Previous winners include Noor Naga for If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, Raven Leilani for Luster, and Viet Thanh Nguyen for The Sympathizer.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
