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Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder

Aspen Institute Announces Shortlist for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize

Aspen, CO, March 11, 2026 –– Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute, today announced the finalists for the Aspen Words Literary Prize (AWLP), a $35,000 annual award for a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.

This year’s five finalists examine some of the most urgent questions of our time through bold storytelling and unforgettable characters.

The 2026 shortlist:

“The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” by Rabih Alameddine (Grove Press)

“Intemperance” by Sonora Jha (HarperVia) 

“Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron Books) 

“Endling” by Maria Reva (Doubleday) 

“So Far Gone” by Jess Walter (Harper) 

The finalists were selected by a distinguished five-member jury: Kate Bowler, Michael Cader, Jamil Jan Kochai, Imbolo Mbue and Héctor Tobar.

The winner of the $35,000 prize will be announced Thursday, April 23, during an awards dinner at The Whitby Hotel in New York City. The evening will feature a conversation with finalist authors moderated by Elisabeth Egan, writer and editor at The New York Times Book Review, followed by the live announcement of the 2026 prize winner. The conversation and announcement will be livestreamed from 8:30–9:30 p.m. EST (6:30–7:30 p.m. MST). Registration for the livestream is free at aspenwords.org.

The winning book will be featured in the annual Community Read sponsored by Aspen Words and Pitkin County Library in Aspen, Colorado. As part of the program, free copies of the novel will be distributed throughout Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.

2026 JURY CITATIONS

“The True, True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” by Rabih Alameddine
Funny, biting and brilliant, Rabih Alameddine’s “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” is a thrilling foray into the layered memories of the titular Raja, a 63-year-old philosophy teacher and “neighborhood homosexual,” living with his mother in Beirut. Here is Alameddine at the height of his literary powers, a storyteller’s storyteller, weaving together the personal and political, the comic and tragic, and all the little joys and sorrows of life as he leads us through some of the most pivotal moments in Lebanon’s history—the Six-Day War in 1967, The Civil War in 1975, the 2019 liquidity crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 port explosion in Beirut—in a narrative voice that is as charming as it is absolutely unforgettable. 

“Intemperance” by Sonora Jha
Sonora Jha’s elegant novel about a middle-aged and disabled woman of color on a quest for a new husband is everything a feminist novel should be. It is unapologetic, it is fierce, it dares the world to a confrontation over who is deserving of every affection. This is a fable about questions we must ask concerning the love lives of those on the margins–who gets to create expectations for them, who gets to make the rules for if and how they should be loved, who decides when those rules must be rewritten or simply trashed. Whatever answers the reader might conjure will only make room for more questions and therein lies the brilliance of this novel.

“Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy
True to its title, this novel is set in a ferocious, beautiful, remote part of the world, perching us at the roiling edge of existence. But there is no escape on Earth from either the fragility of life or the planet’s reckoning with climate change. A true literary thriller, “Wild Dark Shore” teems with gorgeous language and gathering storms of secrets. In this tale of survival and survivors, each of the main characters struggles to live in full form under the shadow of loss and dislocation. It shows that we will face impossible choices both personal and global and we are bound to make mistakes–and sacrifices–yet we can find hope, love and a new life even when that seems unimaginable.

“Endling” by Maria Reva
“Endling” is an audacious novel about people fighting many different kinds of extinction. Part metafiction, part war chronicle, part absurdist picaresque, Maria Reva’s book begins with an ecological adventure in pre-war Ukraine involving, of all things, a critically endangered snail species. But the tale soon takes on metafictional twists and turns as real-life Russian tanks and soldiers invade the country. “Endling” becomes a story about women scrambling to save themselves, their families, and their country—while also growing into a joyful and astonishing celebration of the novel itself, a literary form given new life and urgency by this groundbreaking, utterly unique work.

“So Far Gone” by Jess Walter
“So Far Gone” is a wry, fast-paced, poignant story about a fractured American family as they splinter under the pressures of political extremism, online conspiracy culture and private grief. The book manages to take the political rupture at the heart of American culture and render it human-sized without minimizing the stakes, tracing how isolation, resentment and algorithm-fueled communities can reshape identity and loyalty. The novel balances tonal complexity with unusual skill, using humor to sharpen rather than soften its moral intelligence. But the comedy exposes absurdity while protecting the ache at the center: a father watching someone he loves disappear into a worldview he can no longer reach. Both intimate and culturally trenchant, it’s an extremely memorable portrait of how far people can drift from each other and from themselves in this pockmarked American political landscape.

For more information, visit aspenwords.org/literary-prize

Author headshots & book jackets linked here.

ABOUT ASPEN WORDS

Aspen Words was founded in 1976 as a literary center based in Aspen, CO. A program of the Aspen Institute, its mission is to encourage writers, inspire readers and connect people through the power of stories. For more information, visit www.aspenwords.org.

ABOUT THE ASPEN INSTITUTE

The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.

ABOUT THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

The $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize honors an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture. Open to authors of any nationality, the award is one of the largest literary prizes in the United States, and one of the few focused exclusively on socially engaged fiction. The prize’s past winners include Mohsin Hamid, Tayari Jones, Christy Lefteri, Louise Erdrich, Dawnie Walton, Jamil Jan Kochai, Isabella Hammad and Tommy Orange.  

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ASPEN WORDS CONTACT

Mallory Kaufman
Aspen Words Senior Program Associate | The Aspen Institute
[email protected]