Young Lions Fiction Award Names Five Finalists

This year’s list of finalists for the New York Public Library’s ninth Young Lions Fiction Award includes a doctor-turned-writer, a PhD in artificial intelligence, and a journalist.

Jon Fasman Photo: Alissa Fasman

The award is given annually to an American writer age 35 or younger who is making an indelible impression on the world of literature.

Each year five young fiction writers are selected as finalists by a reading committee of Young Lions members, writers, editors, and librarians. A panel of award judges, including novelist Lore Segal, and last year’s winner Ron Currie, Jr. (who won for God Is Dead), will select the winner.

The winning writer will be awarded a $10,000 prize on March 16, 2009 at a ceremony hosted by actor Ethan Hawke, a Young Lions cofounder, in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

The Young Lions is a membership group at the New York Public Library for supporters in their 20s and 30s and celebrates the work of young writers, artists, and innovators in various fields who are making an impact on our culture and society

 The finalists for The New York Public Library’s 2009 Young Lions Fiction Award are:

Jon Fasman for The Unpossessed City (Penguin, 2008), about a likeable loser who flees gambling debts and a messy life in the unglamorous D.C. suburbs to seek a future in Moscow

Rivka Galchen for Atmospheric Disturbances (HarperCollins, 2008), a debut book that explores the

Sana Krasikov

mysterious nature of human relationships and how we spend our lives trying to weather the storms of our own making. 

Sana Krasikov for One More Year (Spiegel & Grau, 2008), made up of short stories of people who hold out hope, despite the odds, that life will be kind to them.

Zachary Mason for The Lost Books of the Odyssey (Starcherone, 2008), which follows the structure of the ancient Greek classic and features alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original Odyssey.

Salvatore Scibona for The End (Graywolf Press, 2008), a novel set amid racial upheaval in 1950s America during the flight of second-generation immigrants.