Beyond naming three finalists each year, we also present The Story Prize Spotlight Award to a collection of exceptional merit. Selected books can be promising works by first-time authors, collections in alternative formats, or works that demonstrate an unusual perspective on the writer's craft. The award includes a prize of $1,000. We're pleased to announce that the winner for books published in 2022 is God's Little Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu, published by A Public Space Books. These nine evocative and immersive stories explore queer lives and loves amid an atmosphere of cultural intolerance.
A Kirkus Prize finalist, Arinze Ifeakandu is the author of the debut short story collection, God's Children Are Little Broken Things (A Public Space Books), now longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently lives in Nigeria.
This is the 11th time we've given out The Story Prize Spotlight Award. The nine previous winners were:
Drifting House by Krys Lee,
Byzantium by Ben Stroud,
Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor,
Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine,
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar,
Subcortical by Lee Conell,
Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy,
The Trojan War Museum by Ayşe Papatya Bucak,
Inheritors by Asako Serizawaand, most recently,
Born Into This by Adam Thompson.
You can find links to all eleven books, including Ifeakandu's, on Bookshop, in the list Winners of The Story Prize Spotlight Award.
We'll announce the winner of The Story Prize on March 15 at a private event, which we'll live stream, featuring readings by and interviews with the three finalists: Natural History by Andrea Barrett, Bliss Montage by Ling Ma, and Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty. And soon we'll post a long list of short story collections published in 2022.
