Longwood University is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2025 John Dos Passos Prize, the oldest literary award given by a Virginia college or university, which honors one of America’s most talented writers. This year’s list of finalists includes two O. Henry Prize winners and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipients.
The John Dos Passos Prize jury selected five finalists—all celebrated novelists and storytellers whose published works defy literary conventions and experiment with form. Their exceptional works are taught in college classrooms across the country.
The 2025 finalists with selected works are:
- Gish Jen: The Resisters (2020); The Love Wife (2004); Typical American (1991)
- Lindsey Drager: The Avian Hourglass (2024); The Archive of Alternate Endings (2019); The Lost Daughter Collective (2017)
- Eugene Lim: Search History (2021); Dear Cyborgs (2017); The Strangers (2013)
- Chinelo Okparanta: Alohan (2025); Harry Sylvester Bird (2023); Under the Udala Trees (2015)
- Ayana Mathis: The Unsettled (2024); The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (2012)
Launched in 1980, the prize is given annually by Longwood University to a writer whose work offers incisive, original commentary on American themes. The winner of the prize receives an honorarium and will give a reading on Longwood’s campus in the spring of 2026.
“The five finalists for this year’s Dos Passos are each distinct in their approach to writing and their subjects of interest, but what they all share is a deep and abiding interest in language,” said Dr. David Magill, professor of literatures of diversity and chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Longwood. “Each author challenges us to reconsider what we know about the world and how we know it. Their works are delicately rendered yet unswervingly focused on upending our common understandings and asking us to explore new truths and new realities. It’s an amazing group of writers.”
The 2025 Dos Passos Prize selection jury comprises last year’s winner, novelist Angie Cruz; Rone Shavers, associate professor of English at the University of Utah; and Magill, who serves as chair of the jury. The committee looks for works that explore specifically American themes, experiment and encompass a range of human experiences.
Some of the previous recipients of the Dos Passos Prize have gone on to win prestigious literary awards, including Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards. The list of previous recipients includes Shelby Foote (1998), Earnest J. Gaines (1993), Maxine Hong Kingston (1998), Colson Whitehead (2012), Ruth Ozeki (2014), Paul Beatty (2015), Karen Tei Yamashita (2018), Rabih Alameddine (2019) and Monique Truong (2021).
The winner will be announced by the end of the year.
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