NEW YORK — Novelist Aaliyah Bilal, who was a nominee for the National Book Award in the fall of last year for her collection of short stories titled "Temple Folk," is one of the ten authors who have been awarded the Whiting Award for young authors.
Each of the other honorees, which include fellow fiction writers Yoon Choi, Gothataone Moeng, and Ada Zhang, will get a sum of fifty thousand dollars to share among themselves.
The Whiting Foundation made the announcement on Wednesday that the Whiting Prizes were also given to the dramatists Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig,
as well as the poets Taylor Johnson, Charif Shanahan, and Elisa Gonzalez, and to Javier Zamora, who is both a poet and a writer of nonfiction.
In a statement regarding the awardees for this year, Courtney Hodell, who is the director of Literary Programs at Whiting, said, "The rigor and fluid beauty of their writing makes us excited for the work to come."
Since their inception in 1985, the awards have been presented to a number of notable individuals, including Tony Kushner, Mary Karr, and Jeffrey Eugenides, among.
The Whitings are intended to "identify exceptional new writers who have yet to make their mark in the literary culture," as stated in the award's description.
The Whitings are intended to "identify exceptional new writers who have yet to make their mark in the literary culture," as stated in the award's description.
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