First Novel Prize Winners & Finalists | The Center for Fiction

Announcing The Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize Longlist

We are pleased to announce the longlist for The Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize. This year, we received 185 submitted titles with U

The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize was awarded to Joseph Earl Thomas for his debut novel God Bless You, Otis...

The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize was awarded to Tyriek White for his debut novel We Are a Haunting (Astra House)

The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize was awarded to Noor Naga for her debut novel If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English...

The Center for Fiction 2021 First Novel Prize was awarded to Kirstin Valdez Quade for her debut novel The Five Wounds (W

The Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize was awarded to Raven Leilani for her debut novel Luster (Farrar, Straus...

The Center for Fiction 2019 First Novel Prize was awarded to De’Shawn Charles Winslow for his debut novel In West Mills...

The Center for Fiction 2018 First Novel Prize was awarded to Tommy Orange for his debut novel There There (Alfred A

The Center for Fiction 2017 First Novel Prize was awarded to Julie Lekstrom Hines for her debut novel Mikhail and Margarita...

The Center for Fiction 2016 First Novel Prize was awarded to Kia Corthron for her debut novel The Castle Cross the Magnet...