The Stanford University Libraries is pleased to present the shortlist for the twelfth William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Saroyan Prize), a Prize intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation. The Prize recognizes newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction. $5,000 will be awarded in each category. Winners and finalists will be announced in late summer/early fall. The 2026 Saroyan Prize shortlist is as follows:
In the Fiction Category:
The Immortal Woman (House of Anansi Press, 2025) by Su Chang
Homeseeking (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025) by Karissa Chen
Outside Women (University Press of Kentucky, 2025) by Roohi Choudhry
This is the Only Kingdom (Algonquin Books, 2025) by Jaquira Díaz
Finding My Olympia (Kafeneon Productions, 2025) by Nancy Econome
If the Dead Belong Here (Viking, 2025) by Carson Faust
Ibis (The Overlook Press, an imprint of Abrams, 2025) by Justin Haynes
The Ephemera Collector (Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company, 2025) by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
My Prisoner and Other Stories (Mad Creek Books, an imprint of The Ohio State University Press, 2025) by Tyler McAndrew
América del Norte (Soho Press, 2024) by Nicolás Medina Mora
Whale Fall (Pantheon Books, 2024) by Elizabeth O’Connor
The Plan of Chicago: A City in Stories (Cornerstone Press, 2025) by Barry Pearce
Ghost Fish (Little, Brown and Company, 2025) by Stuart Pennebaker
Medusa of the Roses (Grove Atlantic, 2024) by Navid Sinaki
One to Many and other experiments (At the Bay | I te Kokoru, 2024) by Sharni Wilson
In the Nonfiction Category:
Pieces You'll Never Get Back: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival (Catapult, 2025) by Samina Ali
Dandelion: A Memoir in Essays (Jaded Ibis Press, 2025) by Danielle Bainbridge
The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters (Alfred A. Knopf, 2025) by Sasha Bonét
Unexploded Ordnance (Restless Books, 2025) by Catharina Coenen
Raising Hare: A Memoir (Pantheon Books, 2025) by Chloe Dalton
Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024) by Michelle Ephraim
The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them (HarperCollins, 2024) by Ekow Eshun
American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives (Dutton, 2025) by Robert W. Fieseler
Bigger: Essays (Autumn House Press, 2025) by Ren Cedar Fuller
A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled (Bellevue Literary Press, 2025) by Alex Green
Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature (Spiegel & Grau, 2025) by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
Black Boys Like Me: Confrontations with Race, Identity, and Belonging (Viking Canada, 2024) by Matthew R. Morris
Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong (Dutton, 2024) by Katie Gee Salisbury
The Afterlife is Letting Go (City Lights, 2024) by Brandon Shimoda
Destroy This House (Summit Books, 2025) by Amanda Uhle
Congratulations to the authors and publishers!
The Saroyan Prize is a biennial competition jointly awarded by the Stanford University Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation. It commemorates the life, legacy and intentions of William Saroyan - author, artist, dramatist, composer - and is intended to encourage new or emerging writers, rather than to recognize established literary figures.
The 2024 winners were Mirinae Lee (8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster, Harper, 2023) for the fiction category, and Fae Myenne Ng (Orphan Bachelors, Grove Press, 2023) for the non-fiction category.
"The Saroyan Prize generates great excitement at Stanford, engaging a vibrant community of avid readers and authors, along with our dedicated alumni volunteers and library professionals who administer the prize," said Michael A. Keller, the Ida M. Green University Librarian. "We are honored to recommend these thirty shortlisted works to our esteemed panel of judges, who will announce the winners this summer, celebrating William Saroyan's spirit of storytelling that resonates across generations."
This year's distinguished judging panel for fiction consists of authors Sumbul Ali-Karamali and Elizabeth McKenzie, and Scott Setrakian, President of the William Saroyan Foundation. The non-fiction panel includes authors and past Saroyan Prize winners, Mark Arax and Lori Jakiela, and musician and bibliophile Fritz Kasten. More information about our judges can be found on the Saroyan Prize website.
Literary fiction, including novels, short story collections, and drama, are eligible for the Saroyan Fiction Prize. Literary non-fiction of any length is eligible for the Saroyan Non-fiction Prize, most particularly writing in the Saroyan tradition: memoirs, portraits and excursions into neighborhood and community. Entries in either category are limited to English language publications that are available for individual purchase by the general public.
William Saroyan, an American writer and playwright, is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner best known for his short stories about humorous experiences of immigrant families and children in California. Much of Saroyan's other work is clearly autobiographical, although similar in style and technique to fiction. Saroyan was the fourth child of Armenian immigrants. He battled his way through poverty and rose to literary prominence in the early 1930s when national magazines began publishing his short stories, such as The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, My Name Is Aram, Inhale & Exhale, Three Times Three, and Peace, It's Wonderful. Saroyan soon moved on to writing plays for Broadway and screenplays for Hollywood, including: My Heart's in the Highlands, The Time of Your Life, The Beautiful People, and The Human Comedy.