NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gotham Book Prize, an annual award created to encourage and honor writing about New York City in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, today announced the ten finalists for the first annual winner. A jury made up of leading New Yorkers and authors, including novelist Melissa Rivero and poet Safiya Sinclair, nominated a short list of ten eligible books, including:
- Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
- The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher Beha
- Kings County by David Goodwillie
- You Again by Debra Jo Immergut
- The City We Became by N.K Jasmin
- The Hard Hat Riot: Nixon, New York City, & the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution by David Paul Kuhn
- Luster by Raven Leilani
- Deacon King Kong by James McBride
- Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel
- Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld
The Gotham Book Prize was created in July 2020 by Bradley Tusk and Howard Wolfson to support New York City and its arts community by recognizing what makes the city so special as it enters a challenging recovery from Covid-19. The Prize will be awarded annually to the best book published that calendar year (both works of fiction and nonfiction) that either is about New York City or takes place in New York City. Now that the finalists have been chosen, the jury will vote on one winner and the first prize will be awarded in March of 2021. The winner will receive $50,000.
"We created the Gotham Book Prize last summer for two reasons: we thought the best book either set in NYC or about NYC each year should be recognized and rewarded; and in a time of struggle, preserving NYC's mystique in literature – books that make smart, ambitious people from all over the world want to live in NYC – is more important than ever," said Howard Wolfson and Bradley Tusk in a statement. "This is an incredible list and speaks to the imagination of all creative, smart and talented people our city attracts."
The jury of leading New Yorkers and leading authors includes:
- Writer, entrepreneur and sociologist Anna Akbari
- Documentarian and filmmaker Ric Burns
- Novelist and memoirist Stephanie Danler
- Fordham professor and political scientist Dr. Christina Greer
- Writer, poet and Director of the Curator Culture series at The Bass Museum Tom Healy
- NYU Professor and Director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Mitchell Moss
- American University professor and novelist Patricia Park
- Novelist Melissa Rivero
- Poet Safiya Sinclair
- Queens Public Library CEO and former NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott
Wolfson works for Bloomberg Philanthropies, serving as its Education program lead and also runs Mike Bloomberg's SuperPAC. Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist, writer and philanthropist. The two became friends while working on Bloomberg's 2009 re-election campaign.
The winner will be named in April 2021. For more information, please visit gothambookprize.org.
Contact: Rachel Livingston, [email protected]
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SOURCE Gotham Book Prize
