An Evening with National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honorees : Mateo Askaripour, Chelsea T. Hicks, Jenny Xie, Ada Zhang

Each year, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 program recognizes five exceptional debut fiction authors, selected by past National Book Award and 5 Under 35 honorees. Join us for readings and conversation with the 2023 5 Under 35 honorees: Mateo Askaripour (Black Buck), Chelsea T. Hicks (A Calm & Normal Heart), Jenny Xie (Holding Pattern), and Ada Zhang (The Sorrows of Others). Moderated by Natalie Green, Director of Programs & Partnerships at the National Book Foundation.

Presented in partnership with Books & Books, the Miami Book Fair, and the National Book Foundation.

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The 2023 5 Under 35 honorees are:

New York Times bestselling author Mateo Askaripour‘s first novel, Black Buck, takes on racism in corporate America with humor and wit. Askaripour was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly’s “10 rising stars to make waves,” and Black Buck was a Read With Jenna Today Show book club pick. Most recently, Askaripour was named as a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” prize. His second novel, This Great Hemisphere, will be published in summer 2024.

Chelsea T. Hicks is Wahzhazhe, of Pawhuska District, belonging to the Tsizho Washtake, and a citizen of the Osage Nation. She is the author of the first book of contemporary literature to include the Wahzhazhe ie or Osage language orthography, A Calm & Normal Heart, which won the 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and was long-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award. She holds an M.A. from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and directs Words of the People, an organization working to normalize Indigenous language creative writing.

Jenny Xie is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Originally from Shanghai, she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned her MFA at Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Ninth Letter, Joyland, Narrative, and the Best of the Net Anthology. Jenny is the recipient of a Bread Loaf scholarship and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Loghaven. She is a contributing writer for Architectural Digest, Apartment Therapy, and Dwell, where she was the executive editor.

​​Ada Zhang is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short stories have appeared in A Public Space, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. She is currently the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. The Sorrows of Others is her first book.

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6:30 p.m. │ First Draft: A Literary Social with 5 Under 35 Honoree

Miami Book Fair presents First Draft, a series of free and informal writing events where community, craft, and rapid-fire creativity meet for monthly themed virtual salons where writers get social, share their work, and leave with great stories.