The winners of the 2024 Whiting Awards, given annually to “exceptional new writers who have yet to make their mark in the literary culture,” have been revealed, with Javier Zamora, Aaliyah Bilal, and Ada Zhang among the authors taking home the prizes.
Zamora was the winner in two categories, nonfiction and poetry. His memoir Solito, published in 2022 by Hogarth, was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiography and a finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for nonfiction.
Bilal, author of the story collection Temple Folk, won in the fiction category, alongside Yoon Choi (Skinship), Gothataone Moeng (Call and Response), and Ada Zhang (The Sorrows of Others).
Winning in the poetry category alongside Zamora were Elisa Gonzalez (Grand Tour), Taylor Johnson (Inheritance), and Charif Shanahan (Trace Evidence). The drama winners were Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Public Obscenities) and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (Snow in Midsummer).
Courtney Hodell, the Whiting Foundation’s literary programs director, said in a statement, “This year’s winners have made liminal space their own—that place of potential that exists between states, whether those are genres, languages, countries, or definitions of self. The rigor and fluid beauty of their writing make us excited for the work to come.”
The $50,000 Whiting Awards were established in 1985. Previous winners include Hernan Diaz, Colson Whitehead, Don Mee Choi, Yiyun Li, Ling Ma, and Ocean Vuong.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
