NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that Mia Alvar’s In the Country (Knopf/Vintage), a sublime collection of short stories about characters who are profoundly dislocated from the people and places they love most, and Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside: a True Story of Murder in America (Spiegel & Grau), a steely examination of American society that chronicles the commission, investigation, and aftermath of a single murder, are the winners of the 2015 Discover Awards for fiction and nonfiction, respectively. Each writer was awarded a cash prize of $30,000 and a full year of marketing and merchandising support from the bookseller.
Second-place winners are Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) for fiction, a powerful novel in which thirteen siblings come together to decide the fate of the family home in Detroit that was also a finalist for the National Book Award, and George Hodgman’s Bettyville (Viking) for nonfiction, a sharp, insightful and often very funny memoir by a middle-aged ex-New Yorker caring for his elderly mother in their small Missouri hometown. Each writer was awarded a $15,000 cash prize.
Third place was awarded to Sophie McManus for The Unfortunates (FSG) for fiction, an ambitious novel in which a family’s past collides with its present over money, power, secrets and lies, and to Amy Ellis Nutt for Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family for nonfiction, the inspiring true story of one family’s experiences after they acknowledge one of their twin sons is a girl. Each writer received a $7,500 cash prize.
The awards were presented this afternoon at a private ceremony in New York City.
The Discover Awards are presented annually in recognition of literary excellence. The six finalists for the Discover Awards were chosen from the 46 titles handpicked by our booksellers for the Discover Great New Writers program in 2015.
Books by the finalists and judges can be purchased at any Barnes & Noble store nationwide, online at Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com) or instantly downloaded on any NOOK® eReader or tablet.
The Jurists
Two panels of distinguished literary judges selected the winners. Serving as this year’s fiction judges are:
Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters, a New York Times and international bestseller and a Discover Great New Writers selection. Her second novel, The Light of Paris, will be published by Putnam Books in 2016.
Ben Fountain, winner of the Discover Award (fiction) for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara and a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, soon to be a film by Ang Lee.
Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of six novels and a memoir, including The Space Between Us and The Story Hour. She is the Armington Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.
This year’s nonfiction judges are:
Scott Anderson, a veteran war correspondent and the author of five books, most recently the national bestseller Lawrence in Arabia. A frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine, his work has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper’s and Outside.
Candice Millard, author of two New York Times’ bestsellers, The River of Doubt, which was also a Discover Great New Writers selection, and Destiny of the Republic.
Cheryl Strayed, author of four books, including Wild, a #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Discover Award (nonfiction), and the New York Times bestsellers’ Tiny Beautiful Things and Brave Enough. Her books have been translated into 40 languages around the world.
Previous Winners of the Discover Awards
Previous winners of the annual Discover Awards include Evie Wyld for All the Birds, Singing (2014), Anthony Marra for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Justin St. Germain for Son of a Gun (both in 2013), Amanda Coplin for The Orchardist (2012), David Sheff for Beautiful Boy (2008), Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End (2007), Ben Fountain for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (2006), Uzodinma Iweala for Beasts of No Nation (2005), Alison Smith for Name All the Animals (2004), Monica Ali for Brick Lane (2003), Dina Temple-Raston for A Death in Texas (2002), Hampton Sides for Ghost Soldiers (2001), Elizabeth McCracken for The Giant’s House (1996), and Chang-rae Lee for Native Speaker (1995).
Additional information about the 2015 Discover Award winners and judges can be found at www.bn.com/discover.
The Discover Great New Writers Program
The Discover Great New Writers program (www.bn.com/discover), which celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2015, was established in 1990 to highlight works of exceptional literary quality that our booksellers believe readers won’t want to miss. Titles are handpicked for their indelible narrative voices, powerful storytelling and gorgeous prose. Many of the writers previously selected for the program have gone on to become household names.
For more information on the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program, please visit www.bn.com/discover, or ask one of the knowledgeable booksellers at Barnes & Noble’s 640 stores nationwide.
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is a Fortune 500 company, the nation’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 640 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store features more than 4 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com) and UK (www.nook.co.uk), plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS® and Windows®.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company's corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
Barnes & Noble®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers® and Discover Great New Writers® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK® and the NOOK logos are trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.
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