The 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
Ursula K. Le Guin in 2016. Photo courtesy of and copyright William Anthony.
“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom—poets, visionaries—realists of a larger reality.”
The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.
“Many will appreciate an irony in that Ursula herself was suspicious of literary awards and prizes. At the same time, she recognized their genuine value in honoring a writer and increasing visibility of good, undervalued writing. She also knew that a bit of money, at the right moment and in the right spirit, can be a turning point in a writer’s ability to continue writing. I hope the Prize will provide meaningful help and recognition to writers who might otherwise not receive it.”
—Theo Downes-Le Guin, Ursula’s son and literary executor
The nomination process for the prize is open to all, and took place April 1 through April 30, 2023. Readers, authors, booksellers, publishers, librarians and anyone else were invited to nominate work they believe fits the following criteria:
The Prize will be given to a writer whose work reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work, including but not limited to: hope, equity, and freedom; non-violence and alternatives to conflict; and a holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world.
To be eligible for the 2023 Prize, a book must also be:
A book-length work of imaginative fiction written by a single author.
Published in the U.S. in English or in translation to English. (In the case of a translated work winning the Prize, the cash prize will be equally divided between author and translator.)
Published between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023.
A writer may receive the Prize only once.
The Prize also gives weight to those writers whose access to resources, due to race, gender, age, class or other factors, may be limited; who are working outside of institutional frameworks such as MFA programs; who live outside of cultural centers such as New York; and who have not yet been widely recognized for their work.
The recipient of each year’s prize will be chosen by a selection panel of authors. The 2023 selection panel includes William Alexander, Alexander Chee, Karen Joy Fowler, Tochi Onyebuchi, and Shruti Swamy.
2023 Selection Panel
William Alexander, photo by Alice Dodge
William Alexander is a National Book Award-winning author of unrealisms for young audiences. His novels include Goblin Secrets, Ambassador, and A Properly Unhaunted Place. Honors include the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, two Junior Library Guild Selections, a Mythopoetic Award finalist, an International Latino Book Award finalist, a Cybils Award finalist, and the Earphones Award for audiobook narration. He teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
Alexander Chee, photo by Robert Gill
Alexander Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How to Write An Autobiographical Novel, all from Mariner Books. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and United Artists Fellow, he is a recipient of the Whiting Award and a NEA Fellowship in Prose, as well as residencies from MacDowell, Civitella Ranieri and the VCCA. His stories and essays have appeared recently in T Magazine, Harpers, and The New Republic, and he was the guest editor for Best American Essays 2022. He teaches as an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.
Tochi Onyebuchi, photo by Christina Orlando
Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath. His previous fiction includes Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Awards and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Ignyte Award for Best Novella, and the World Fantasy Award; the Beasts Made of Night series; and the War Girls series. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and elsewhere. His non-fiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He currently resides in Connecticut.
Shruti Swamy, photo courtesy the subject
Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection A House Is a Body, which was a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize, the LA Times First Fiction Award, and longlisted for the Story Prize. Her novel, The Archer, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and won the California Book Award for fiction. The winner of two O. Henry Awards, her work has appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeny's, AFAR Magazine, and The New York Times. Her introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin’s masterpiece Always Coming Home is forthcoming in the novel’s 2023 reissue. She is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Steinbeck Fellowship from San Jose State University, and grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Council, and Vassar College. She is a Kundiman Fiction Fellow, and lives in San Francisco.
Karen Joy Fowler, photo by Kristen Murakoshi
Karen Joy Fowler is the author of seven novels, including Sarah Canary and The Jane Austen Book Club, and three short story collections, two of which won the World Fantasy Award in their respective years. Her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, Booth, was published in March of 2022.
