Here Are The Winners Of The 2023 Gotham Book Prize; Add These NYC Books To Your Reading List

 

Here Are The Winners Of The 2023 Gotham Book Prize; Add These NYC Books To Your Reading List

For the first time, two books were awarded the Gotham Book Prize, an annual award for the best new book set in New York City. 

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana and The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet won this year's award. The winners, announced yesterday, will split a $70,000 prize.

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The two winning entries were selected from a pool of 11 finalists, ranging from a debut novel set in 1990s Harlem to a love story in post-WWII New York to a noir mystery in mid-2000s Brooklyn. A jury of authors and esteemed New Yorkers selected the winners.

In Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, Fofana’s narrative focuses on the interconnected lives within one apartment building in Harlem—from the friendships to the rivalries—as the clock of gentrification ticks louder than ever. Meanwhile, The Sewing Girl’s Tale is a historical drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermaths. 

Photograph: Courtesy of P&T Knitwear

The Gotham Book Prize is awarded annually to the best book published that calendar year—either fiction or nonfiction—that either is about New York City or takes place in New York City. Previous winners include Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott (2022) and Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2021).

Those previous winning books sit on Fofana's bookshelf, and he said it's "absolutely surreal" to be included among them. "This city is so beautifully intricate, and for the Gotham Prize to include Stories from the Tenants Downstairs in that mosaic is an honor words really cannot do justice to," said Fofana, a public school teacher in Brooklyn.