The
National Book Foundation’s
“5 Under 35” Fiction Selections for 2008 |
  Five
young fiction writers were recognized by the National
Book Foundation at the “5 Under 35” celebration
at Tribeca Cinemas on Monday, November 17. These five
writers were each selected by a previous National Book
Award Finalist or Winner as someone whose work is particularly
promising and exciting and is among the best of a new
generation of writers.
In just three short years, the “5 Under 35”
celebration has become the highly-anticipated kick-off
event for National Book Awards week. During the evening,
each writer was introduced by the writer who selected
them. They read an excerpt from their most recent
book to an audience of their peers: young writers,
editors, publishers, agents, journalists and bloggers.
This year’s emcee was Dean
Wareham, musician, recording artist and
author, and the D.J. was none other than bestselling
author and columnist Chuck
Klosterman.
“This celebration gives a few extraordinary,
young literary talents their due and marks the beginning
of a week devoted to the best American literature
of the year,” said Augenbraum.
More
about the featured authors:
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Matthew
Eck enlisted in the Army in 1992 and
served in Somalia and Haiti. After leaving the
service, he earned a BA in English Literature
from Wichita State University and a MFA in Creative
Writing from the University of Montana. He lives
in Kansas City, Missouri and The Farther
Shore is his first novel.
Matthew Eck
photo by Katie Cramer Eck. |
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Keith
Gessen was born in Russia and currently
lives in Brooklyn. He was educated at Harvard
and Syracuse. He is a founder of the magazine
n+1 and translator of the National
Book Critics Circle Award-winning Voices
from Chernobyl. His work has also appeared
in the Dissent, the New Yorker,
and the New York Review of Books.
All the Sad Young Literary Men is his first
book.
Keith Gessen photo
by Suzanne Goldish. |
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Sana Krasikov
was born in the Ukraine and grew up in the former
Soviet Republic of Georgia and in the United States.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she
is the recipient of an O. Henry Award and a Fulbright
Scholarship. She lives in New York City and is
at work on her first novel.
Sana Krasikov photo by Tatiana Krasikov. |
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Nam
Le was born in Vietnam and raised in
Australia. He has received the Pushcart Prize,
the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award,
and his fiction has appeared in venues including
Zoetrope, A Public Space, Conjunctions,
One Story, NPR's Selected Shorts,
and the Best American Nonrequired Reading,
Best New American Voices, Best Australian Stories
and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Currently the
fiction editor of the Harvard Review,
Le is also the David T.K. Wong Fellow at the University
of East Anglia for 2008-2009. The Boat
is his fiction debut.
Nam
Le photo by Joanne Chan. |
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Fiona
Maazel is a writer and freelance editor.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times,
Anthem, Bomb, The Boston
Book Review, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
The Mississippi Review, Pierogi Press,
Salon.com, Tin House, The Village
Voice, and The Yale Review. In 2005,
she was the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
Last Last Chance is her first novel.
Fiona Maazel photo
by Tobias Everke. |
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Host:
Dean Wareham was born in Wellington,
New Zealand, and immigrated to New York City as
a teenager in 1977. He has recorded sixteen albums
and was a founding member of two indie rock bands:
Galaxie 500 and Luna. Early this year Penguin
Press published his book Black Postcards,
which is both a personal memoir and an inside
look at the last twenty years of the music scene.
Dean
Wareham photo by Michael Levine. |
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DJ: Chuck Klosterman
is the New York Times bestselling author
of Downtown Owl; Chuck Klosterman
IV; Killing Yourself to Live; Sex,
Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and Fargo Rock
City, winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.
He is a featured columnist for Esquire,
a contributor to The New York Times Magazine,
and has also written for Spin, The
Washington Post, The Guardian, The
Believer, and ESPN. In 2008, he was the Picador
Guest Professor for Literature at the University
of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in
Leipzig, Germany. Klosterman lives in New York.
Chuck
Klosterman photo by Kamilla Kraczkowski.
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