The Los Angeles Times revealed the finalists for its annual book prizes Wednesday, with Raja Shehadeh, Justin Torres, and S.A. Cosby among the authors in the running for the literary awards.
Shehadeh’s We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, which was also a National Book Award finalist, made the shortlist in the current interest category, as did Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family, Bettina L. Love’s Punished for Dreaming, Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson’s American Gun, and Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes.
Torres made the fiction shortlist for Blackouts, his National Book Award–winning novel that is also a finalist for this year’s National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Also nominated in the category were Susie Boyt for Loved and Missed, Yiyun Li for Wednesday’s Child, Elizabeth McKenzie for The Dog of the North, and Ed Park for Same Bed Different Dreams.
Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed was named a finalist in the mystery/thriller category, along with Lou Berney’s Dark Ride, Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows, Cheryl A. Head’s Time’s Undoing, and Ivy Pochoda’s Sing Her Down.
The Times also announced the winners of three special awards. Novelist Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres, Moo) was named the winner of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, while the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose went to Claire Dederer for Monsters. The nonprofit Access Books was named the winner of the Innovator’s Award.
The winners of this year’s prizes will be announced at a ceremony at the University of Southern California on April 19. A complete list of finalists is available at the Times website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
