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Year after year, New York City serves as the backdrop for countless works of literature, film, and TV. Today, 11 new books set in New York City have been selected as finalists for the Gotham Book Prize, and one will soon be awarded the grand prize of $50,000.
Fiction and nonfiction works can be considered for the prize, so long as they feature New York as a topic or setting and were published within the calendar year. Their settings range from 1970s Harlem to a Brooklyn apartment to the Bronx Slave Market in 1944. They're all worth adding to your reading list. But only one will win the grand prize on June 5 during the Queens Public Library’s annual gala.
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The Gotham Book Prize began during the early days of the pandemic as a way to encourage and honor writing about New York City. Bradley Tusk, who founded independent bookstore P&T Knitwear, teamed up with Howard Wolfson, who works for Bloomberg Philanthropies, to create the prize.
Here are the 2024 finalists
- All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Brinkley
- Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad
- Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
- Flores and Miss Paula by Melissa Rivero
- Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim by Patricia Park
- Rikers: An Oral History by Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau
- The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios
- The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Peiffer
- The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune by Alexander Stille
- We Are a Haunting by Tyriek White
- Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders
The books span neighborhoods, generations, and cultures. One work of fiction, for example, is set during Ramadan in Bay Ridge. Two teenage sisters plan a summer of revelry—until several significant events upset the balance in their family and their neighborhood. Another work of fiction is set in the 1970s when Harlem is burning amid war between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army; this family is caught up in it all. In a non-fiction piece, a former museum guard shares all the nooks and crannies of the incredible Metropolitan Museum of Art.
All of the books are available for purchase at P&T Knitwear on the Lower East Side or for borrowing from Queens Public Library.
Judges will have a difficult job this year. A jury of leading New Yorkers and authors that will select the award's winner. Panelists include poet Safiya Sinclair, documentarian Ric Burns, writer Anna Akbari, and Queens Public Library President Dennis M. Walcott, among others.
These titles span decades of New York’s history and reveal some amazing stories of people and places in each of its boroughs that define the city.
"These titles span decades of New York’s history and reveal some amazing stories of people and places in each of its boroughs that define the city today. I am a lifelong New Yorker and love that several of them transported me back to a period I lived through and vividly recall. But what was most beautiful to me is that each book showed me a side of the city I may never have experienced otherwise," Walcott said in a press release.
This year's winner will be added to the auspicious list of previous winners. Deacon King Kong by James McBride was the first Gotham Book Prize winner in 2021. Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott won in 2022. In 2023, the prize was split between two winners, The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet and Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana.
The Gotham Book Prize is a way to celebrate the creative minds who have bounced back and continued to tell the tale of one of the greatest stories in the world — the City of New York.
"It’s impossible to capture the richness of New York City in just one book, but the eleven finalists for the 2024 Gotham Book Prize all come pretty close," Gotham Book Prize co-founders Bradley Tusk and Howard Wolfson said in a statement. "While we are well past the lowest points of the pandemic, the Gotham Book Prize is a way to celebrate the creative minds who have bounced back and continued to tell the tale of one of the greatest stories in the world — the City of New York."