2021 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists

We're excited to share that the The New York Public Library today announced the finalists for the annual Young Lions Fiction Award! The literary prize, now in its twentieth year, recognizes the best new work of fiction written by an American author under 35. This year's finalists are listed below. All descriptions are provided by the publishers.


 

 

Little Gods by Meng Jin

A lyrical and thought-provoking debut novel that explores the complex web of grief, memory, time, physics, history, and selfhood in the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between daughters and mothers.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Pew by Catherine Lacey 

A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy; Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

In Temporary, a young woman's workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Her riveting quest will resonate with anyone who has ever done their best at work, even when the work is only temporary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Almost everything about Wallace (an introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer) is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree in this novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends.

 

 

 

 

 

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang

An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape—trying not just to survive but to find a home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Much of These Hills Is Gold: A Novel By C Pam Zhang Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780525537212
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Riverhead Books - April 6th, 2021

Temporary (Emily Books) By Hilary Leichter Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781566895668
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Coffee House Press - March 3rd, 2020

Staff Pick Badge
Real Life: A Novel By Brandon Taylor Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780525538899
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Riverhead Books - February 16th, 2021

Little Gods: A Novel By Meng Jin Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062935960
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Custom House - January 12th, 2021

Pew: A Novel By Catherine Lacey Cover Image
$26.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780374230920
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - July 21st, 2020