Granta 54: Best of Young American Novelists 1 (1996)

Who were the best young novelists in the United States of America in 1996?

What were they writing about? How were they writing about it? What happened to 'Dirty Realism'? Which might you want to read? And who, among this generation, would emerge to become the important writers of today?

In 1996 Granta asked eighteen established American novelists of an older generation to deliberate their choice among the new. Five regional judging panels, each comprising three novelists of distinction, were asked to produce a shortlist, and the final judging panel identified twenty writers of particular achievement and promise.

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The Winners

Sherman Alexie
Madison Smartt Bell
Ethan Canin
Edwidge Danticat
Tom Drury
Tony Earley
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jonathan Franzen
David Guterson
David Haynes
Allen Kurzweil
Elizabeth McCracken
Lorrie Moore
Fae Myenne Ng
Robert O'Connor
Chris Offutt
Stewart O'Nan
Mona Simpson
Melanie Rae Thon
Kate Wheeler

The Judges

Robert Stone, novelist
Anne Tyler, novelist
Tobias Wolff, novelist
Ian Jack, editor of Granta

Regional Judges:

Richard Bausch
Charles Baxter
Rosellen Brown
Frederick Busch
Stuart Dybek
Maureen Howard
Thom Jones
Beverly Lowry
Leonard Michaels
Howard Frank Mosher
Jayne Anne Phillips
Padgett Powell
Marilynne Robinson
James Welch
Stephen Wright