Thursday, October 16, 2008

Sana Krasikov (MFA, 2005) and Nam Le (MFA, 2006) are two of the five young fiction writers to be honored at the National Book Foundation's “5 Under 35” celebration in November. The 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.

Sana Krasikov's One More Year: Stories was selected by Francine Prose, the 2000 Fiction Finalist for Blue Angel. Gaiutra Bahadur reviewed One More Year for The New York Times, observing, "Krasikov's cast of exiles, refugees and repatriates are . . . people moving in and out of love—or what passes for it. She has written a sensitive book about the economics of relationships: how they can become subtle transactions by people trying to pull off the trick of occupying more than one place and more than one time."

Nam Le's collection of stories, The Boat, was chosen by Mary Gaitskill, 2005 Fiction Finalist for Veronica, who wrote, "Nam Le is extraordinary. His editor remarked to me that he ‘must be heard’; I would add that he will be heard, that The Boat will be read for as long as people read books. Its vision and its power are timeless."