Zadie Smith, Valeria Luiselli, and Ben Lerner are among the eight authors shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the recently founded British literary award that’s open to books of all genres.
Smith was named a finalist for Grand Union, her first story collection. The book previously made the longlist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction. Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive, which won the Carnegie Medal and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, also made the shortlist.
Lerner’s The Topeka School, another National Book Critics Circle-nominated novel, was named a finalist, as was Victory, a two-novella volume by English author James Lasdun.
Three nonfiction books made the cut: Azadeh Moaveni’s Guest House for Young Widows, Laura Cummings’ On Chapel Sands, and Sinéad Gleeson’s Constellations. The sole book of poetry to be named a finalist was Fiona Benson’s Vertigo Ghost.
The Folio Prize was founded in 2014 as a counterpoint to the Booker Prize, which some criticized as being too friendly to popular literature. The award comes with a cash prize of about $38,700.
The inaugural winner of the award was George Saunders for his story collection Tenth of December. Other winners have included Hisham Matar for The Return and Richard Lloyd Parry for Ghosts of the Tsunami.
The winner of this year’s award will be announced at the British Library in London on March 23.
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas–based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
