THE 18TH WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE IS
FILTHY ANIMALS BY BRANDON TAYLOR
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
As announced at a private event that was broadcast live, the winner of The Story Prize for books published in 2021 is Brandon Taylor for Filthy Animals (Riverhead Books). The other finalists were Lily King for Five Tuesdays in Winter (Grove Press) and J. Robert Lennon for Let Me Think (Graywolf Press). The Story Prize’s $20,000 top prize is among the largest first-prize amounts of any annual U.S. book award for fiction. As runners-up, King and Lennon each received $5,000.
Taylor’s first book, the novel Real Life, was a finalist for the Booker Prize. The Story Prize is his first major book award. Six of the eleven stories in Filthy Animals are connected by a group of common characters: Lionel, a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics who has taken a leave of absence after a suicide attempt who encounters Charles and Sophie, two dancers in a complicated relationship that sometimes crosses over into outright cruelty toward each other and those they draw into their circle.
Director Larry Dark and Founder Julie Lindsey selected the three finalists for The Story Prize, now in its 19th year, from among 119 short story collections published in 2021, representing 90 different publishers or imprints. Three judges—librarian and writer Dev Aujla; critic, writer, and librarian David Kipen; and writer Kirstin Valdez Quade—determined the 18th winner of the prize from among the three books chosen as finalists.
About The Story Prize
Past winners have been Edwidge Danticat, Patrick O'Keeffe, Mary Gordon, Jim Shepard, Tobias Wolff, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Anthony Doerr, Steven Millhauser, Claire Vaye Watkins, George Saunders, Elizabeth McCracken, Adam Johnson, Rick Bass, Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, Edwidge Danticat (a second time), and, most recently, Deesha Philyaw.
The deadlines for submitting 2022 books are July 15 for books published in the first half of the year and Nov. 15 for books published in the second half.
The Story Prize is a $20,000 book prize
awarded to the author of the short story collection
named best of the year by three independent judges.
“The Story Prize―which recognizes the best story collection to be published each year―has quickly established itself as a nifty jewel in a writer’s crown.”
An anthology of stories by past winners of this award,
The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction (Catapult Books), is available wherever books are sold. Introducing the stories are excerpts from on-stage interviews with the authors
at the annual Story Prize award events.
The Story Prize partners
The Story Prize is a Literary Hub partner
Publisher of The Story Prize anthology