St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York, announced the shortlist for its new fifty-thousand-dollar literary award, given to honor a fourth book of fiction. The finalists are Chris Abani for his novella Song For Night (Akashic Books, 2007), Aleksandar Hemon for his short story collection Love and Obstacles (Riverhead Books, 2009), Jim Krusoe for his novel Girl Factory (Tin House Books, 2008), and Arthur Phillips for his novel The Song Is You (Random House, 2009).
The judges for the award are authors Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, Ben Marcus, and Ayelet Waldman. They selected the four finalists from a pool of just under forty submissions.
The winner will be announced on September 12 at a gala celebrating the Brooklyn Book Festival, which will be held the following day at Brooklyn Borough Hall, a few blocks from the St. Francis campus. A ceremony to honor the prize recipient, who will conduct a fiction workshop and give a reading at St. Francis, will be held at the college in the fall.