World Literature At the moment, the College of Oklahoma’s award-winning journal of worldwide literature and tradition, has introduced finalists for the 2026 Neustadt Worldwide Prize for Literature. This prestigious award acknowledges vital contributions to world literature and has a historical past as a lead-up to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The nominees (with consultant texts famous) for the 2026 Neustadt Prize, which carries a $50,000 money award, are as follows:

Yuri Andrukhovych / Set Change

Elif Batuman / The Possessed

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge / A Treatise on Stars

Robert Olen Butler / Had a Good Time

Safia Elhillo / The January Kids

Mathias Énard / Inform Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants

Ibrahim Nasrallah / Time of White Horses

Yoko Tawada / The Emissary

Jesmyn Ward / Sing, Unburied, Sing

The finalists’ full bios could be discovered on the Neustadt web site.

9 Neustadt jurors, all artistic writers and translators, selected the finalists; they are going to meet to decide on the winner on the 2025 Neustadt Lit Fest, scheduled for Oct. 20–22. The literary pageant is hosted by World Literature At the moment and the College of Oklahoma.

“We dwell in troubled instances, and the Neustadt Prize, recognizing the most effective writers on the earth, is a beacon of hope for the human journey,” mentioned Robert Con Davis-Undiano, govt director of World Literature At the moment, the prize’s sponsor. “Literature enhances our capacity to acknowledge who we’re and who we are able to change into, and the work of the Neustadt jury yr after yr displays the continued significance of literature in our lives.”

The prizewinner announcement shall be made on Tuesday, Oct. 21, through the Neustadt Lit Fest, which this yr honors Cherie Dimaline, laureate of the 2025 NSK Neustadt Prize for Kids’s and Younger Grownup Literature. Competition occasions are free and open to the general public.

The Neustadt Prize is the primary worldwide literary award of its scope to originate in the USA and is one in all only a few worldwide prizes for which poets, novelists, screenwriters and playwrights are equally eligible. Since 1970, it has been awarded each different yr to a dwelling author in recognition of a major physique of labor. Previous winners embrace Gabriel García Márquez, Czesław Miłosz and Edwidge Danticat. The 2024 Neustadt Prize winner was Mauritian author Ananda Devi.

Winners of the Neustadt Prize are awarded $50,000, a silver duplicate of an eagle feather, a prize certificates and a pageant hosted of their honor. A beneficiant endowment from the Neustadt household endows the award in perpetuity. To study extra concerning the Neustadt and NSK Prizes, go to neustadtprize.org.