8 Award-Winning Literary Fiction Books You've Never Heard Of

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Laura Sackton is a queer e-book nerd and freelance author, identified on the web for loving winter, despising summer season, and going overboard with extravagant baking initiatives. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she opinions for BookWeb page and AudioFile, and writes a weekly e-newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and engaging treats. You can catch her on Instagram shouting in regards to the queer books she loves and sharing pictures of the walks she takes within the hills of Western Mass (whereas listening to audiobooks, in fact).

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I really like many, many books labeled literary fiction regardless that I despise the time period. It’s a ineffective signifier that doesn’t really imply something. I’ll die on this hill. However, I’m only one particular person speaking about books on the web, and my hatred of the time period isn’t going to make it disappear. So, let’s set that apart and discuss some wonderful, award-winning literary fiction you won’t have heard of!

Literary fiction, as a class, tends to win plenty of awards. Many of the large e-book prizes — the Booker, the Pulitzer, the National Book Awards — are geared towards “literary” books. But there are much more under-the-radar literary fiction books on the market than you may assume. There are fairly just a few small prizes that don’t get the identical sort of consideration, and sometimes the successful books are actually fantastic: small press books or experimental works extra mainstream prizes generally cross over.

These eight award-winning books have all been revealed within the final three years. They happen all around the world, from India to Greece to Lebanon to Trinidad. There are brief story collections and novels. Some are pretty easy, whereas others play with type — there’s even a novel in verse! Most of them have below 500 scores on Goodreads.

What Willow Says by Lynn Buckle (2021 Barbellion Prize)

The Barbellion Prize, based in 2020, is a literary award devoted to celebrating and uplifting disabled literature. The 2021 winner is that this contemplative novel in regards to the relationship between a deaf youngster and her grandmother. The two of them construct their very own language, utilizing components of signal language in addition to their very own dwelling indicators, facial expressions, and motion. It’s a quiet coming-of-age story, an ode to the pure world, and a gorgeous exploration of what it means to belong to somebody or someplace.

Last of Her Name by Mimi Lok (2020 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize)

In these interconnected brief tales, Mimi Lok delves into the lives of diasporic ladies, set in a wide range of locations and time intervals, from California to the UK to Hong Kong. Themes of isolation, loneliness, migration, historical past, womanhood, and the seek for significant connection reverberate all through the entire assortment. If you’re a fan of brief fiction, that is one to not miss.

The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick (2023 Lambda Award for Transgender Fiction)

When was the final time you learn a novel in verse a few group of trans ladies in Brooklyn? Probably by no means! This inventive and deeply transferring novel is a unfastened retelling of the Russian novel Eugene Onegin, although a lot of its issues are decidedly twenty first century: cancel tradition, generational variations in activist actions, metropolis life, what it means to belong to an identity-based group. It’s each a juicy, gossipy drama about friendships, fallouts, and hookups, and a nuanced take a look at therapeutic, trauma, and private and non-private accountability.

Delhi: A Soliloquy by M. Mukundan, translated by Fathima E.V. and Nandakumar Ok. (2021 JCB Prize for Indian Literature)

If you’re the sort of reader who loves books the place cities are their very own characters, it is a must-read novel. It follows Sahadevan, a younger man residing in Delhi, as he lives by way of disaster after disaster, each private and world, from the Sixties by way of the Eighties. Interspersed with Sahadevan’s story are the tales of many different characters — artists, college students, activists, and others — who’re all caught up within the shifting political currents of a sophisticated metropolis.

Cover of The Wrong End Of The Telescope by Rabih Alameddine

The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction)

This is a type of books that I like to recommend to only about everybody, and but it nonetheless appears to have flown considerably below the radar. It’s humorous, tender, smart, playful, and filled with hope, regardless of the heavy material. Mina is a trans Lebanese American physician who decides to spend a while volunteering at refugee camps on Lesbos. While there, she reconnects together with her brother, meets a well-known novelist, and displays on the challenges and joys of her personal life. It’s meditative however deeply human e-book.

A Shock by Keith Ridgway (2021 James Tait Black Prize for Fiction)

I’m beginning to assume that prize-winning story collections and novels-in-stories don’t get the identical consideration as prize-winning novels as a result of there are such a lot of sensible ones on this listing with disappointingly few Goodreads scores! This one focuses on a group of characters in London, a lot of them queer, and plenty of of them residing on the fringes, doing no matter it takes to outlive. It’s a kaleidoscopic and refreshingly frank take a look at up to date city life.

Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed (2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature)

This is one other novel-in-stories, this one set in a fictional city in Trinidad. Mohammed writes by way of and round a number of occasions and acts of violence, exploring them from totally different views and factors of view. The result’s a portrait of a city that’s disturbing, vibrant, and filled with contradictions. This is commonly a tough e-book to learn, as Mohammed faces trauma and legacies of violence head-on, however it’s each impactful and transferring.

Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks (2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction)

Set in 1957 initially of the Civil Rights Movement, this novel follows Alice Young, who leaves dwelling to start life in New Jessup, an all-Black city in Alabama that has rejected the concept integration will result in liberation. Life in New Jessup is stuffed with issues, particularly when Alice falls for a younger activist whose beliefs don’t all the time align with these held by the city’s management. This is a fantastically written and thought-provoking debut.

Looking for extra award-winning books you’ve by no means heard of? We’ve received you lined with fantasy, nonfiction, memoirs, and queer books!