NBF's '5 Under 35' (2006-2010)

2010 info from National Book Foundation accessed 10/6/10

The 2010 5 Under 35 Honorees are:

Sarah Braunstein, The Sweet Relief of Missing Children (W.W. Norton & Co., 2011)
Selected by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, National Book Award Fiction Finalist for
Madeleine Is Sleeping, 2004
Grace Krilanovich, The Orange Eats Creeps (Two Dollar Radio, 2010)
Selected by Scott Spencer, Fiction Finalist for A Ship Made of Paper, 2003; Fiction Finalist for Endless Love, 1980 and 1981
Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife (Random House, 2011)
Selected by Colum McCann, Fiction Winner for Let the Great World Spin, 2009
Tiphanie Yanique, How to Escape from a Leper Colony (Graywolf, 2010)
Selected by Jayne Anne Phillips, Fiction Finalist for Lark and Termite, 2009
Paul Yoon, Once the Shore (Sarabande, 2009)
Selected by Kate Walbert, Fiction Finalist for Our Kind, 2004

The National Book Foundation

The 2009 5 Under 35 Honorees Are:
Ceridwen Dovey, Blood Kin (Viking, 2008)
Selected by Rachel Kushner, 2008 Fiction Finalist for Telex from Cuba

C. E. Morgan, All the Living (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009)
Selected by Christine Schutt, 2004 Fiction Finalist for Florida

Lydia Peelle, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
(HarperCollins, 2009)
Selected by Salvatore Scibona, 2008 Fiction Finalist for The End

Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
(Vintage, 2006)
Selected by Dan Chaon, 2001 Fiction Finalist for Among the Missing

Josh Weil, The New Valley (Grove Press, 2009)
Selected by Lily Tuck, 2004 Fiction Winner for The News from Paraguay

Now in its fourth year, "5 Under 35” has become the highly-anticipated kick-off event for National Book Awards week. In a nod to Brooklyn’s status as the literary epicenter of New York City, the Foundation has moved the event to the Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO. That evening, each author will be introduced by the writer who selected them. This year’s emcee is musician, novelist, and publisher Richard Hell, founder of the seminal punk band Richard Hell & the Voidoids. The evening’s DJ will be novelist, essayist, and MacArthur fellow Jonathan Lethem.
Food provided by Soler-Bermudez of the Red Hook Food Vendors, a 2008 Vendy Award Finalist, and regular at the Red Hook Ball Fields every summer.

Wines generously donated by Joseph and Diane Steinberg; and beer generously donated by Union Beer.

More about the featured authors:

Ceridwen Dovey grew up in South Africa and Australia. She is an anthropologist and author of the novel Blood Kin, which won South Africa's most prestigious literary award, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Her novel was also short-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australia-Asia Literary Award, and long-listed for the Prix Femina Etranger.

C. E. Morgan was born in Cincinnati and now lives in Berea, Kentucky. She studied English and voice at Berea College and received a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) from Harvard Divinity School. Her short story "Over by Christmas" was published on the op-ed page of The New York Times this past Christmas. All the Living is her first novel. She's currently working on a novel about horse racing and race relations.

Lydia Peelle is the author of the story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing. In addition to having two of her stories featured in the Best New American Voices series, she has also won two Pushcart Prizes and an O. Henry Prize. Peelle was born in Boston and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Karen Russell’s collection of stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was named a Best Book of 2006 by the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. In 2007, Russell was included in Granta’s series: the Best of Young American Novelists. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Conjunctions, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories (2007 and 2008). Russell, a native of Miami, now lives in New York City and is working on a novel, Swamplandia!, about a family of alligator wrestlers in the Florida swamp.

Josh Weil is the author of the novella collection The New Valley (Grove Press, 2009), a New York Times Editors' Choice selection. His fiction has been published in Granta, New England Review, American Short Fiction, and Narrative. He has written nonfiction for The New York Times, Granta Online, and Poets & Writers. Since earning his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright grant, a Writer’s Center Emerging Writer Fellowship, and the Dana Award in Portfolio. He has been a fellow at both the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. As the 2009 Tickner Fellow, he is the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore, where he is at work on a novel.

National Book Award Authors

Dan Chaon's most recent novel, Await Your Reply, is out this fall from Ballantine Books. Chaon is also the author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. His fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction and was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.

Rachel Kushner’s first novel, Telex from Cuba, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, received the gold medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her fiction and essays have been published in the New York Times, The Believer, Fence, Bomb, Grand Street, Cabinet, and elsewhere. She contributes regularly to Artforum and is a co-editor of the art, literature, and philosophy journal, Soft Targets.

Salvatore Scibona’s first novel, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award, a winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library, and winner of the Norman Mailer Cape Cod Award for Exceptional Writing. Riverhead will publish a paperback edition of The End in fall 2009, and it will be published in German and French in 2010. Scibona administers the writing fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Christine Schutt is the author of two short story collections and Florida, a novel and 2004 National Book Award finalist. Her second novel, All Souls, was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Among other honors, Schutt has twice won the O. Henry Short Story Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and an NYFA fellowship. Schutt is a senior editor of the literary annual NOON. She lives and teaches in New York.

Lily Tuck is the author of The News from Paraguay, winner of the 2004 National Book Award. Her most recent work is a biography, Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante.
Photo by Marion Ettlinger.
Host: Richard Hell is the author of the novels Go Now and Godlike. His book of collaborations with the artist Christopher Wool, Psychopts, was published in 2008, and his CD, Destiny Street Repaired, by Richard Hell and the Voidoids, was released in 2009. He is at work on an autobiography.

DJ: Jonathan Lethem is the author of seven novels. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Lethem has also published his stories and essays in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and the New York Times, among others. His most recent novel is Chronic City.

Press inquiries contact Sherrie Young syoung@nationalbook.org

“5 Under 35” Fiction Selections for 2008
The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck - (selected by Joshua Ferris)
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen - (selected by Jonathan Franzen)
One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov - (selected by Francine Prose)
The Boat by Nam Le - (selected by Mary Gaitskill)
Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel - (selected by Jim Shepard)

“5 Under 35” Fiction Selections for 2007
Garner by Kirstin Allio - (selected by Dana Spiotta)
The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu - (selected by Jess Walter)
Get Down: Stories by Asali Solomon - (selected by Jennifer Egan)
Petropolis by Anya Ulinich - (selected by Ken Kalfus)
Third Class Superhero by Charles Yu - (selected by Richard Powers)

“5 Under 35” Fiction Selections for 2006
O My Darling by Amity Gaige - (selected by Christopher Sorrentino)
The Seas by Samatha Hunt - (selected by Rene Steinke)
Corpus Christi: Stories by Bret Anthony Johnston - (selected by Adam Haslett)
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap - (selected by Joan Silber)
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer - (selected by Edward P. Jones)