The L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize has announced this year’s longlist. The $25,000 prize — one of the largest literary awards in the United States — recognizes exceptional fiction published in the previous year.
Since 2016, Texas State University’s Department of English has administered the award in celebration of the Clarks’ lifelong contributions to, and love for, literature and the arts. In nine years, Clark prize-winning books and authors have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and more. Recent winners have included Isabella Hammad, Jamal Jan Kochai, Percival Everett, Raven Leilani, Chia-Chia Lin, Rebecca Makkai, Daniel Alarcón, Jim Shepard and Colson Whitehead.
The books on this year’s longlist — 12 great works of fiction published in 2024 — were nominated by a panel of distinguished authors and critics. They are:
