We’re pleased to announce that Weike Wang has selected Displaced Persons: Stories by Joan Leegant of Newton, Massachusetts, to receive the 2022 New American Fiction Prize!
Joan will receive $1,500 and Displaced Persons will launch on June 1, 2024.
For her first book of stories, An Hour in Paradise: Stories, JOAN LEEGANT won the 2003 PEN/New England Book Award and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. She is also the author of a novel, Wherever You Go. Her prize-winning fiction has appeared in over two dozen literary magazines and anthologies. Formerly an attorney, she has taught at Harvard, Oklahoma State, and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where she was also the writer-in-residence at Hugo House. For five years, she was the visiting writer at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv where she also spoke at Israeli schools on American literature and culture under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy, and taught English to African refugees and asylum seekers. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her family.
Finalists for the 2022 New American Fiction Prize
- THE ANIMALS, by Tom Howard of Arlington, Virginia
- SUTRA AMERICANA, by Monana Wali of Santa Monica, California
- TWELVE OXEN UNDER THE SEA, by Craig Bernardini of Hopewell Junction, New York
- WHAT REMAINS AFTER A FIRE, by Kanza Javed of Winooski, Vermont
- ZAN, by Suzi Ehtesham-Zadeh of Woodstock, Georgia
