The Maya Angelou Book Award reading committee has selected five finalists for the fourth annual national award, which is presented by the Kansas City Public Library, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and five other Missouri universities.

The finalists, chosen from a field of more than 150 submissions of fiction:

• Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad, in which three siblings in the Arab community of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, face a sense of unease in their neighborhood over the course of one Ramadan.
• Fire Exit, by Morgan Talty, follows a man who lives across the river from Maine’s Penobscot Reservation grappling with revealing a family secret.
• River East, River West, by Aube Rey Lescure, is a family drama about two generations in China: the young, married man Lu Fang in 1985 and 14-year-old Alva in 2007.
• The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim: In the 1980s, a mother and daughter and pair of brothers are sent to a South Korean reformatory institution.
• Witness, by Jamel Brinkley, is a short story collection set in New York City and follows narratives of actions taken and not taken.

The winner will be announced at the annual Writers for Readers event on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The recipient receives $10,000 and conducts a book tour of the participating universities.

Named for acclaimed, Missouri-born memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, the prize celebrates contemporary writers whose work demonstrates their commitment to social justice. It alternates annually between poetry and fiction, going this year to the author of a work of fiction.

The award was established in 2020 by the Kansas City Public Library, UMKC, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, and Northwest Missouri State, Truman State, and Southeast Missouri State universities.

Read about the Maya Angelou Book Award.

Buy a ticket to the Writers for Readers event on Thursday, November 21, 2024.