What the Judges Had to Say About Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick for Another World

photo © Beowulf Sheehan

When the three judges for The Story Prize make their choices, they provide citations for the books. This year's judges were Susan Minot, Walton Muyumba, and Stephanie Sendaula. We include the citations in congratulatory letters we present to each finalist, along with their checks ($20,000 to the winner, $5,000 to the other two finalists). To protect the confidentiality of the judges' votes and the integrity of the process, we don't attribute citations to any particular judge.

“Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World is hilarious and humane. In punchy, terse, sparkling sentences, Moshfegh creates fictional zones that span the globe—from Japan, China, Ukraine, New York, to California. She’s interested in human foibles that ‘translate’ across zones rather than identifying the local particulars of any place.

“Peopled by odd, beautiful, delusional characters, Moshfegh’s stories examine how humans attempt to dull their various anxieties, emotional and existential, with drugs, bad amorous arrangements, and wondrously debauched, disgusting (as one character puts it) sex. But none of this is cheap or tawdry. In Moshfegh’s hands, sex, sexuality, and sexual desire open the characters up, especially the men imagined here, for closer examination.

“Many of the women in these stories own their bodies forcefully, experiencing sexual pleasure as deeply private and personally empowering. But several men here, with embarrassing lack of self-awareness, tout their ‘beautiful’ bodies loudly or probe for sex inelegantly. Moshfegh burns open this masculine bluster with laser incisiveness, revealing its soft core: self-defeating self-aggrandizement. For the reader, these revelations will trigger out-loud laughter. But the author never mocks the characters in Homesick for Another World. Instead, Moshfegh delivers these truths with brilliant, stinging, ironic humor and sensitive care for her characters.”

The Story Prize Finalists: Daniel Alarcón, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Elizabeth Strout

We're pleased to honor as finalists for The Story Prize three outstanding books published in 2017, chosen from 120 entries representing 93 different publishers or imprints. It was a deep field with a lot of worthy story collections—more so than usual. The finalists are:

Authors extraordinaire: Daniel Alarcón, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Elizabeth Strout

• The King Is Always Above the People by Daniel Alarcón (Riverhead Books)
• Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)
• Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)

The King Is Always Above the People by Daniel Alarcón portrays citizens struggling to belong to or hoping to escape from an unnamed South American country. The stories in Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick for Another World unflinchingly depict women and men seeking meaning in off-kilter circumstances. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout navigates the bleak terrain of a rural Illinois setting, depicting the haunting effect of the past on the present lives of its characters.

This year's judges—author Susan Minot, author and critic Walton Muyumba, and librarian Stephanie Sendaula—will decide the outcome.

The annual award event will take place at the New School’s Auditorium at 66 West 12 Street in New York City at 7:30 p.m. on Wed., Feb. 28. Tickets cost $14. That night, Alarcón, Moshfegh, and Strout will read from and discuss their work on-stage. At the end of the event, Julie Lindsey will announce the winner and present that author with $20,000 along with an engraved silver bowl. The two runners-up will each receive $5,000. The Creative Writing Program at The New School co-sponsors the event.

In the weeks ahead, we'll announce this year's winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award. We'll also publish an index of guest posts from 2017 authors and a long list of other exceptional collections we read last year.