The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year. It was established in 1979 in memory of author Sue Kaufman.

Past winners

* 1980 -

Jayne Anne Phillips Jayne Anne Phillips (born July 19, 1952) is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Education Phillips graduated from West Virginia University, earning a B.A. in 1974, and later g ...

, ''Black Tickets'' * 1981 - Tom Lorenz, ''Guys Like Us'' * 1982 - Ted Mooney, '' Easy Travel to Other Planets'' * 1983 -

Susanna Moore Susanna Moore (born December 9, 1945) is an American writer and teacher. Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Hawaii, Moore worked as a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginning her career as a writer. Her first nove ...

, ''My Old Sweetheart'' * 1984 -

Denis Johnson Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, '' Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most successful novel, ''Tree of Smoke'' (2007) ...

, ''Angels'' * 1985 -

Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...

, '' Love Medicine'' * 1986 - Cecile Pineda, ''Face'' * 1987 - Jeannette Haien, ''The All of It'' * 1988 -

Kaye Gibbons Kaye Gibbons (born May 5, 1960) is an American novelist. Her first novel, '' Ellen Foster'' (1987), received the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Special Citation from the Ernest ...

, ''

Ellen Foster ''Ellen Foster'' is a 1987 novel by American novelist Kaye Gibbons. It was a selection of Oprah's Book Club in October 1997. Plot introduction The novel follows the story of Ellen, the first person narrator, a young white American girl living un ...

'' * 1989 - Gary Krist, ''The Garden State'' * 1990 -

Allan Gurganus Allan may refer to: People * Allan (name), a given name and surname, including list of people and characters with this name * Allan (footballer, born 1984) (Allan Barreto da Silva), Brazilian football striker * Allan (footballer, born 1989) ( ...

, ''

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'' is a 1989 first novel by Allan GurganusReed, Susan and Hutchings, Davi"He's 42, She's 99—Together They Make the South Rise Again"''People Magazine'', September 18, 1989 which was on the New York Tim ...

'' * 1991 -

Charles Palliser Charles Palliser (born December 11, 1947 in Holyoke, Massachusetts) is a best-selling novelist, American-born but British-based. His most well-known novel, '' The Quincunx'', has sold over a million copies internationally. He is the elder brother ...

, ''

The Quincunx ''The Quincunx (The Inheritance of John Huffam)'' is the epic first novel of Charles Palliser. It takes the form of a Dickensian mystery set in early 19th century England, but Palliser has added the modern attributes of an ambiguous plot and unr ...

'' * 1992 - Alex Ullmann, ''Afghanistan'' * 1993 -

Francisco Goldman Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, ''Monkey Boy'' (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fi ...

, ''The Long Night of White Chickens'' * 1994 -

Emile Capouya Emile Capouya was an American essayist, critic, and writer. His book 'In the sparrow Hills' won the Sue Kaufman Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Mr. Capouya was born in Manhattan in 1925 and grew up in the Bronx. ...

, ''In the Sparrow Hills'' * 1995 -

Jim Grimsley Jim Grimsley (born September 21, 1955) is an American novelist and playwright. Biography Born to a rural family in Grifton, North Carolina, Grimsley said of his childhood that "for us in the South, the family is a field where craziness grows l ...

, ''Winter Birds'' * 1996 -

Peter Landesman Peter Landesman (born 3 January 1965) is an American screenwriter, film director, producer, journalist, novelist and painter. He wrote a number of cover stories for ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'' an ...

, ''The Raven'' * 1997 - Brad Watson, ''Last Days of the Dog-Men'' * 1998 -

Charles Frazier Charles Frazier (born November 4, 1950) is an American novelist. He won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction for '' Cold Mountain''. Biography Early life Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, grew up in Andrews and Franklin, North ...

, '' Cold Mountain'' * 1999 - Michael Byers, ''The Coast of Good Intentions'' * 2000 -

Nathan Englander Nathan Englander (born 1970) is an American short story writer and novelist. His debut short story collection, ''For the Relief of Unbearable Urges,'' was published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1999. His second collection, ''What We Talk About When We ...

, ''

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges ''For the Relief of Unbearable Urges'' is a short story collection by Nathan Englander, first published by Knopf in 1999. It has received many positive reviews. It earned Englander a PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, a ...

'' * 2001 -

Akhil Sharma Akhil Sharma (born July 22, 1971) is an Indian-American author and professor of creative writing. His first published novel '' An Obedient Father'' won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His second, ''Family Life'', won the 2015 Folio Priz ...

, ''An Obedient Father'' * 2002 - Don Lee, ''

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...

'' * 2003 - Gabe Hudson, ''Dear Mr. President'' * 2004 -

Nell Freudenberger Nell Freudenberger (born 1975, in New York City) is an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Education Freudenberger graduated from Harvard and has traveled extensively in Asia. Career Fiction Freudenberger's fiction has appeared ...

, ''Lucky Girls'' * 2005 -

John Dalton John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour b ...

, ''

Heaven Lake Heaven Lake (Korean: , ''Ch'ŏnji'' or ''Cheonji''; zh, 天池, ''Tiānchí''; Manchu: ''Tamun omo'' or ''Tamun juce'') is a crater lake on the border between China and North Korea. It lies within a caldera atop the volcanic Paektu Mount ...

'' * 2006 -

Uzodinma Iweala Uzodinma Iweala (born November 5) is a Nigerian-American author and medical doctor. His debut novel, ''Beasts of No Nation'', is a formation of his thesis work (in creative writing) at Harvard. It depicts a child soldier in an unnamed African ...

, ''

Beasts of No Nation ''Beasts of No Nation'' is a 2005 novel by the Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala, that takes its title from Fela Kuti's 1989 album of the same name. The book won the 2005 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was adapted as a m ...

'' * 2007 -

Tony D'Souza Tony D'Souza is an American novelist, journalist, essayist, reviewer, travel, and short story writer. He has published three novels with the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt including: ''Whiteman'' (2006), ''The Konkans'' (2008), and ''Mule'' ...

, ''Whiteman'' * 2008 - Frances Hwang, ''Transparency'' * 2009 - Charles Bock, '' Beautiful Children'' * 2010 -

Josh Weil Josh is a masculine given name, frequently a diminutive (hypocorism) of the given names Joshua or Joseph, though since the 1970s, it has increasingly become a full name on its own. It may refer to: People A–J * "Josh", an early pseudonym of S ...

, ''The New Valley'' * 2011 - Brando Skyhorse, ''The Madonnas of Echo Park'' * 2012 - Ismet Prcic, ''Shards'' * 2013 -

Kevin Powers Kevin Powers (born July 11, 1980) is an American fiction writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran. Biography Powers was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a factory worker and a postman, and enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of seve ...

, ''

The Yellow Birds ''The Yellow Birds'' is the debut novel from American writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers. It was one of ''The New York Timess 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 and a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. It was awarded the 2012 The ...

'' * 2014 -

Manuel Gonzales Manuel Gonzales (March 3, 1913 – March 31, 1993) was a Spanish-American Disney comics artist. He worked on the ''Mickey Mouse'' comic strip from 1940 to 1981. Gonzales was born in Cabañas de Sayago, Zamora, Spain and died in Los Angeles. ...

, ''The Miniature Wife'' * 2015 - Michael Carroll, ''Little Reef and Other Stories'' * 2016 - Kirstin Valdez Quade, ''Night at the Fiestas'' * 2017 - Lee Clay Johnson, ''Nitro Mountain'' * 2018 -

Emily Fridlund Emily Fridlund is an author and academic best known for her novel ''History of Wolves.'' Personal life Fridlund grew up in Edina, Minnesota. She has a bachelor's degree from Principia College in Illinois, an MFA in fiction from Washington Univ ...

, '' History of Wolves'' * 2019 - Jane Delury, ''The Balcony'' * 2020 - Isabella Hammad, ''The Parisian'' * 2021 - Douglas Stuart, ''

Shuggie Bain ''Shuggie Bain'' is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, published in 2020. It tells the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class ...

'' * 2022 - Jackie Polzin, ''Brood''

References

External links

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sue Kaufman Prize For First Fiction American literary awards Awards established in 1979 Awards of the American Academy of Arts and Letters First book awards