NEW YORK, Apr 7 (US): Mega Majumdar, whose novel “A Burning” has been among the most talked about debut novels in recent years, is among the 10 recipients of the Whiting Prize for Emerging Writers.
Fiction writers Claire Boyles and Nana Nkoetti, poets Ina Karino and Anthony Cody and realist writers Anais Doblan and Alexis Pauline Gambs will each receive $50,000 prize money, The Associated Press reports.
Others honored Wednesday at a gala in Manhattan include novelist Rita Polwinkel, poet Claire Schwartz and non-fiction writer Jesse McCarthy.
“As the world opens up, these brilliant writers are opening up our world,” said Courtney Hodel, director of literary programs for the Whiting Foundation.
“From New Cultural Criticism, to poems of place, character, and appetite, to fiction that brings surreal brilliance to compassionate images, their work is a thaw in the mind.”
The awards were established in 1985 and have previously gone to future literary stars such as Jonathan Franzen, Colson Whitehead and Tracy K. Smith.