The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is worth $50,000. The prize is a biennial award sponsored by the United States’ University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, World Literature Today.

This year’s jury which includes Jennifer Croft, Tarfia Faizullah, Hamid Ismailov, Fowzia Karimi, Eleni Kefala, R. O. Kwon, Carlos Labbé, Carlos Pintado, Matthew Shenoda, and Olga Zilberbourg, has selected Kwame Dawes’s Prophets, and Boris Boubacar Diop’s  Marimba: The Book of Bones as two of its finalists.

Here is a statement from the jury

“This jury continues the tradition of having top-tier international writers assessing the work of peers,” said Robert Con Davis-Undiano, executive director of World Literature Today, the prize sponsor. “Literature is a key component of our ability to recognize what makes us human, and the work of the Neustadt jury year after year is a contemporary tribute to the critical place that literature has in our lives.”

The winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 26, during the Neustadt Lit Fest. This year’s ceremony will honor Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee), laureate of the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature.

Click here The Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2022 to see other nominees.