The National Book Foundation released its list of “5 Under 35” honorees today, “a selection of five fiction writers under the age of 35 whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” Each author receives a $1,000 prize from the foundation for their contribution.
Here are the 2019 honorees:
So Many Olympic Exertions by Anelise Chen
Selected by: Dana Spiotta, 2006 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction
From the publisher: “Blending elements of memoir and sports writing, Anelise Chen’s debut novel is an experimental work that perhaps most resembles what the ancient Greeks called hyponemata, or “notes to the self,” in the form of observations, reminders and self-exhortations. Taken together, these notes constitute a personal handbook on “how to live”––or perhaps more urgently “why to live,” a question the narrator, graduate student Athena Chen, desperately needs answering.”
