5 under 35 honors young literary talent

Posted at 12:51 PM on October 5, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Books, Writing

Tiphanie Yanique's book "How to Escape from a Leper Colony" gains national recognition

Each year the National Book Foundation presents its National Book Awards. And for the last five years, it has asked the winners and runners-up in the fiction category to select their favorite author under the age of 35. The 5 under 35 awards seek to highlight young authors 'whose work is particularly promising and exciting and is among the best of a new generation of writers.'

This year's awards went to:

Sarah Braunstein for The Sweet Relief of Missing Children

Grace Krilanovich for The Orange Eats Creeps

Téa Obreht for The Tiger's Wife

Paul Yoon for Once the Shore

and

Tiphanie Yanique for How to Escape from a Leper Colony

Yanique's book is published by Graywolf Press here in the Twin Cities. Yanique is from the Hospital Ground neighborhood of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. She is an assistant professor of Creative Writing and Caribbean Literature at Drew University and an associate editor with Post-No-Ills, and is the winner of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award. She lives between Brooklyn, New York and St. Thomas.

This is not the first time a Minnesota publisher has had an author recognized in the 5 under 35 awards; in 2007 Kirstin Allio made the short list for her book Garner, published by Coffee House Press.