Karen Russell Wins 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award for Swamplandia

Posted on May 18, 2012

Karen Russell has won the 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award for her novel, Swamplandia!, which is set in a gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. The award is a $10,000 prize awarded each spring by the New York Public Library to a writer age 35 or younger for a novel or a collection of short stories.

Here is a list of the finalists for the 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award:

• Open City by Teju Cole (Random House)
• The Evolution of Bruno Littlemoreby Benjamin Hale (Twelve/Hachette Book Group)
• Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (Coffee House Press)
• Swamplandia! By Karen Russell (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)