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

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Laura Sackton is simply a queer publication nerd and freelance writer, known connected the net for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In summation to her enactment astatine Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a play newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You tin drawback her connected Instagram shouting astir the queer books she loves and sharing photos of the walks she takes successful the hills of Western Mass (while listening to audiobooks, of course).

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I emotion many, galore books labeled literate fabrication adjacent though I despise the term. It’s a useless signifier that doesn’t really mean anything. I volition dice connected this hill. However, I americium conscionable 1 idiosyncratic talking astir books connected the internet, and my hatred of the word isn’t going to marque it disappear. So, let’s acceptable that speech and speech astir immoderate amazing, award-winning literate fabrication you mightiness not person heard of!

Literary fiction, arsenic a category, tends to triumph a batch of awards. Many of the large publication prizes — the Booker, the Pulitzer, the National Book Awards — are geared toward “literary” books. But determination are a batch much under-the-radar literate fabrication books retired determination than you mightiness think. There are rather a fewer tiny prizes that don’t get the aforesaid benignant of attention, and often the winning books are genuinely wonderful: tiny property books oregon experimental works much mainstream prizes sometimes walk over.

These 8 award-winning books person each been published successful the past 3 years. They instrumentality spot each implicit the world, from India to Greece to Lebanon to Trinidad. There are abbreviated communicative collections and novels. Some are reasonably straightforward, portion others play with signifier — there’s adjacent a caller successful verse! Most of them person nether 500 ratings connected Goodreads.

What Willow Says by Lynn Buckle (2021 Barbellion Prize)

The Barbellion Prize, founded successful 2020, is simply a literate grant dedicated to celebrating and uplifting disabled literature. The 2021 victor is this contemplative caller astir the narration betwixt a deaf kid and her grandmother. The 2 of them physique their ain language, utilizing elements of motion connection arsenic good arsenic their ain location signs, facial expressions, and movement. It’s a quiescent coming-of-age story, an ode to the earthy world, and a beauteous exploration of what it means to beryllium to idiosyncratic oregon someplace.

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

In these interconnected abbreviated stories, Mimi Lok delves into the lives of diasporic women, acceptable successful a assortment of places and clip periods, from California to the UK to Hong Kong. Themes of isolation, loneliness, migration, history, womanhood, and the hunt for meaningful transportation reverberate passim the full collection. If you’re a instrumentality of abbreviated fiction, this is 1 not to miss.

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

When was the past clip you work a caller successful verse astir a radical of trans women successful Brooklyn? Probably never! This originative and profoundly moving caller is simply a escaped retelling of the Russian caller Eugene Onegin, though galore of its concerns are decidedly 21st century: cancel culture, generational differences successful activistic movements, metropolis life, what it means to beryllium to an identity-based community. It’s some a juicy, gossipy play astir friendships, fallouts, and hookups, and a nuanced look astatine healing, trauma, and nationalist and backstage accountability.

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

If you’re the benignant of scholar who loves books wherever cities are their ain characters, this is simply a must-read novel. It follows Sahadevan, a young antheral surviving successful Delhi, arsenic helium lives done situation aft crisis, some idiosyncratic and global, from the 1960s done the 1980s. Interspersed with Sahadevan’s communicative are the stories of galore different characters — artists, students, activists, and others — who are each caught up successful the shifting governmental currents of a analyzable city.

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

This is 1 of those books that I urge to conscionable astir everyone, and yet it inactive seems to person flown somewhat nether the radar. It’s funny, tender, wise, playful, and afloat of hope, contempt the dense taxable matter. Mina is simply a trans Lebanese American doc who decides to walk immoderate clip volunteering astatine exile camps connected Lesbos. While there, she reconnects with her brother, meets a celebrated novelist, and reflects connected the challenges and joys of her ain life. It’s meditative but profoundly quality book.

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

I’m starting to deliberation that prize-winning communicative collections and novels-in-stories don’t get the aforesaid attraction arsenic prize-winning novels due to the fact that determination are truthful galore superb ones connected this database with disappointingly fewer Goodreads ratings! This 1 focuses connected a postulation of characters successful London, galore of them queer, and galore of them surviving connected the fringes, doing immoderate it takes to survive. It’s a kaleidoscopic and refreshingly frank look astatine modern municipality life.

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

This is different novel-in-stories, this 1 acceptable successful a fictional municipality successful Trinidad. Mohammed writes done and astir respective events and acts of violence, exploring them from antithetic perspectives and points of view. The effect is simply a representation of a municipality that is disturbing, vibrant, and afloat of contradictions. This is often a hard publication to read, arsenic Mohammed faces trauma and legacies of unit head-on, but it is some impactful and moving.

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

Set successful 1957 astatine the opening of the Civil Rights Movement, this caller follows Alice Young, who leaves location to statesman beingness successful New Jessup, an all-Black municipality successful Alabama that has rejected the thought that integration volition pb to liberation. Life successful New Jessup is afloat of complications, particularly erstwhile Alice falls for a young activistic whose beliefs don’t ever align with those held by the town’s leadership. This is simply a beautifully written and thought-provoking debut.

Looking for much award-winning books you’ve ne'er heard of? We’ve got you covered with fantasy, nonfiction, memoirs, and queer books!

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