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The Young Lions Fiction Award is an annual US literary prize of $10,000, awarded to a writer who is 35 years old or younger for a novel or collection of short stories.^[1]^[2] The award was established in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick Moody, Hannah McFarland, and the New York Public Library. Each year, five young fiction writers are selected as finalists by a reading committee of Young Lions members (a New York Public Library membership aimed at people in their 20s and 30s^[3]), writers, editors, and librarians. A panel of judges selects the winner.^[1]^[4]

Recipients

Year	Author	Title	Result	Judges
2001	Mark Z. Danielewski	House of Leaves	Winner	Michael Chabon, A.M. Homes, Francine Prose
	David Ebershoff	The Danish Girl	Finalist
	Myla Goldberg	Bee Season	Finalist
	Heidi Julavits	The Mineral Palace	Finalist
	Akhil Sharma	An Obedient Father	Finalist
	Darin Strauss	Chang and Eng	Finalist
2002	Colson Whitehead	John Henry Days	Winner ^[5]	Andrea Barrett, Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Lethem
	David Czuchlewski	The Muse Asylum	Finalist
	Allegra Goodman	Paradise Park	Finalist
	Peter Orner	Esther Stories	Finalist
	Brady Udall	The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint	Finalist
2003	Anthony Doerr	The Shell Collector	Winner ^[6]	Joyce Carol Oates, Caryl Phillips, Colson Whitehead
	Jonathan Safran Foer	Everything Is Illuminated	Winner ^[6]
	Adam Johnson	Emporium	Finalist
	Ben Marcus	Notable American Women	Finalist
	Peter Rock	The Ambidextrist	Finalist
2004	Monique Truong	The Book of Salt	Winner ^[7]	Anthony Doerr, Jonathan Safran Foer, Maureen Howard
	Jordan Ellenberg	The Grasshopper King	Finalist
	Susan Choi	American Woman	Finalist
	Lara Vapnyar	There Are Jews in My House	Finalist
	Maile Meloy	Liars and Saints	Finalist
2005	Andrew Sean Greer	The Confessions of Max Tivoli	Winner ^[8]	Siri Hustvedt, Colum McCann, Monique Truong
	Marc Bojanowski	The Dog Fighter	Finalist
	Sarah Shun-lien Bynum	Madeleine Is Sleeping	Finalist
	Stephen Elliott	Happy Baby	Finalist
	Aaron Gwyn	Dog on the Cross	Finalist
2006	Uzodinma Iweala	Beasts of No Nation	Winner ^[9]	Rick Moody, Edmund White, Andrew Sean Greer
	Rattawut Lapcharoensap	Sightseeing	Finalist
	Kelly Link	Magic for Beginners	Finalist
	Ander Monson	Other Electricities	Finalist
	Eric Puchner	Music Through the Floor	Finalist
2007	Olga Grushin	The Dream Life of Sukhanov	Winner ^[10]	Kathryn Harrison, Jeff Talarigo, Uzodinma Iweala
	Chris Adrian	The Children’s Hospital	Finalist
	Kevin Brockmeier	The Brief History of the Dead	Finalist
	Tony D’Souza	Whiteman	Finalist
	Karen Russell	St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves	Finalist
2008	Ron Currie, Jr	God Is Dead	Winner ^[11]	Olga Grushin, Han Ong, Helen Schulman
	Ellen Litman	The Last Chicken In America	Finalist
	Peter Nathaniel Malae	Teach the Free Man	Finalist
	Dinaw Mengestu	The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears	Finalist
	Emily Mitchell	The Last Summer of the World	Finalist
2009	Salvatore Scibona	The End	Winner ^[12]	André Aciman, Lore Segal, Ron Currie, Jr.
	Jon Fasman	The Unpossessed City	Finalist
	Rivka Galchen	Atmospheric Disturbances	Finalist
	Sana Krasikov	One More Year	Finalist
	Zachary Mason	The Lost Books of the Odyssey	Finalist
2010	Wells Tower	Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned	Winner ^[6]	Amy Hempel, Rick Moody, Salvatore Scibona
	Jedediah Berry	The Manual of Detection	Finalist
	Katie Kitamura	The Longshot	Finalist
	Philipp Meyer	American Rust	Finalist
	C. E. Morgan	All the Living	Finalist
2011	Adam Levin	The Instructions	Winner ^[13]	Maile Chapman, Andrew Sean Greer, Kelly Link
	John Brandon	Citrus County	Finalist
	Patricia Engel	Vida Suzanne	Finalist
	Suzanne Rivecca	Death Is Not an Option	Finalist
	Teddy Wayne	Kapitoil	Finalist
2012	Karen Russell	Swamplandia!	Winner ^[14]	Álvaro Enrique, A.M. Homes, Adam Levin
	Teju Cole	Open City	Finalist
	Benjamin Hale	The Evolution of Bruno	Finalist
	Ben Lerner	Leaving the Atocha Station	Finalist
	Jesmyn Ward	Salvage the Bones	Finalist
2013	Claire Vaye Watkins	Battleborn	Winner ^[15]	Karen Russell, John Wray, Peter Nathaniel Malae
	Ramona Ausubel	No One Is Here Except All of Us	Finalist
	Joshua Cohen	Four New Messages	Finalist
	Katie Kitamura	Gone to the Forest	Finalist
	Kevin Powers	The Yellow Birds	Finalist
2014	Paul Yoon	Snow Hunters	Winner ^[8]	Téa Obreht, Colm Tóibín, Claire Vaye Watkins
	Matt Bell	In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods	Finalist
	Jennifer duBois	Cartwheel	Finalist
	Anthony Marra	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Finalist
	Chinelo Okparanta	Happiness, Like Water	Finalist
2015	Molly Antopol	The UnAmericans	Winner	Ayana Mathis, Rebecca Mead, Paul Yoon
	Jesse Ball	Silence Once Begun	Finalist
	Catherine Lacey	Nobody Is Ever Missing	Finalist
	Andrew Ladd	What Ends	Finalist
	Ben Lerner	10:04	Finalist
2016	Amelia Gray	Gutshot	Winner	Molly Antopol, Joseph O’Neill, Alejandro Zambra
	Angela Flournoy	The Turner House	Finalist
	Alexandra Kleeman	You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine	Finalist
	Helen Phillips	The Beautiful Bureaucrat	Finalist
	Kirstin Valdez Quade	Night at the Fiestas	Finalist
2017	Karan Mahajan	The Association of Small Bombs	Winner	Amelia Gray, Susan Minot, Salvatore Scibona
	Clare Beams	We Show What We Have Learned	Finalist
	Brit Bennett	The Mothers	Finalist
	Nicole Dennis-Benn	Here Comes the Sun	Finalist
	Kaitlyn Greenidge	We Love You Charlie Freeman	Finalist
2018	Lesley Nneka Arimah	What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky	Winner	Carys Davies, Lynn Lobash, Karan Mahajan
	Venita Blackburn	Black Jesus and Other Superheroes	Finalist
	Gabe Habash	Stephen Florida	Finalist
	Emily Ruskovich	Idaho	Finalist
	Jenny Zhang	Sour Heart	Finalist
2019	Ling Ma	Severance	Winner	Lesley Nneka Arimah, Tayari Jones, Marisa Silver
	Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	Friday Black	Finalist
	Nick Drnaso	Sabrina	Finalist
	Akwaeke Emezi	Freshwater	Finalist
	Laura van den Berg	The Third Hotel	Finalist
2020	Bryan Washington	Lot	Winner	Ethan Hawke, Mitchell Jackson, Ling Ma
	Steph Cha	Your House Will Pay	Finalist
	Julia Phillips	Disappearing Earth	Finalist
	Kiley Reid	Such a Fun Age	Finalist
	Xuan Juliana Wang	Home Remedies	Finalist
2021	Catherine Lacey	Pew	Winner	Hernan Diaz, Emma Straub, Yahdon Israel
	Meng Jin	Little Gods	Finalist
	Hilary Leichter	Temporary	Finalist
	Brandon Taylor	Real Life	Finalist
	C Pam Zhang	How Much of These Hills Is Gold	Finalist
2022	Kalani Pickhart	I Will Die in a Foreign Land	Winner	Venita Blackburn, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Catherine Lacey
	Mateo Askaripour	Black Buck	Finalist
	Alexandra Kleeman	Something Under the Sun	Finalist
	Tom Lin	The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu	Finalist
	Dantiel W. Moniz	Milk Blood Heat	Finalist
2023	Zain Khalid	Brother Alive	Winner	Jessamine Chan, Claire Luchette, and Kalani Pickhart
	Fatimah Asghar	When We Were Sisters	Finalist
	Elaine Hsieh Chou	Disorientation	Finalist
	Reyes Ramirez	The Book of Wanderers	Finalist
	David Sanchez	All Day Is a Long Time	Finalist
2024	E. J. Koh	The Liberators	Winner	A. M. Homes, Caoilinn Hughes, and, Zain Khalid
	Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	Chain Gang All-Stars	Finalist
	Monica Brashears	House of Cotton	Finalist
	Eskor David Johnson	Pay as You Go	Finalist
	C Pam Zhang	Land of Milk and Honey	Finalist
2025	Alexander Sammartino	Last Acts	Winner
	Pemi Aguda	Ghostroots	Finalist
	Eliza Barry Callahan	The Hearing Test	Finalist
	Santiago Jose Sanchez	Hombrecito	Finalist
	Karla Cornejo Villavicencio	Catalina	Finalist

References

^ ^a ^b “2020 Young Lions Fiction Award”. donate.nypl.org. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Catherine Lacey ’10 Wins 2021 NYPL Young Lions Award”. Columbia – School of the Arts. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Young Lions”. The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “The NYPL has announced the 2020 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists”. Literary Hub. 2020-05-19. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Colson Whitehead Biography – eNotes.com”. eNotes. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ ^a ^b ^c “New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winners”. www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ BookBrowse. “Monique Truong author biography”. BookBrowse.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ ^a ^b “Young Lions Award List of Winners and Finalists”. The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “SuperSummary”. SuperSummary. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Olga Grushin : The Dream Life of Sukhanov : Book Review”. mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Ron Currie, Jr. : God is Dead : Book Review”. mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Books — Salvatore Scibona”. Salvatore Scibona. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Adam Levin, novelist”. Adam Levin. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Bio”. Karen Russell. Archived from the original on 2021-07-15. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
^ “Claire Vaye Watkins”. Granta. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-:0-1] “2020 Young Lions Fiction Award”. donate.nypl.org. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-:1-2] “Catherine Lacey ’10 Wins 2021 NYPL Young Lions Award”. Columbia – School of the Arts. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-3] “Young Lions”. The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-4] “The NYPL has announced the 2020 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists”. Literary Hub. 2020-05-19. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-5] “Colson Whitehead Biography – eNotes.com”. eNotes. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-:3-6] “New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winners”. www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-7] BookBrowse. “Monique Truong author biography”. BookBrowse.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-:2-8] “Young Lions Award List of Winners and Finalists”. The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-9] “SuperSummary”. SuperSummary. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-10] “Olga Grushin : The Dream Life of Sukhanov : Book Review”. mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-11] “Ron Currie, Jr. : God is Dead : Book Review”. mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-12] “Books — Salvatore Scibona”. Salvatore Scibona. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-13] “Adam Levin, novelist”. Adam Levin. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-14] “Bio”. Karen Russell. Archived from the original on 2021-07-15. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

[rdp-we-cite_note-15] “Claire Vaye Watkins”. Granta. Retrieved 2021-07-15.

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