The Sargent Prize was created by the Center as part of its mission to promote the art of fiction in the United States. It is supported by members of the Sargent family, in recognition of John Sargent Sr.’s lifetime of reading and distinguished work as President and CEO of Doubleday and Company for many years.
2007 Winner John Sarge
nt, Sr. First Novel Prize
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz (Riverhead/Penguin)
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss.
Junot Díaz’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His debut story collection, Drown, published eleven years prior to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, became a national bestseller, won numerous awards, and has since grown into a landmark of contemporary literature. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Díaz lives in New York City and is a professor of creative writing at MIT.
s
Bearing the Body by Ehud Havazelet
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Finn by Jon Clinch (Random House)
Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins)
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander (Knopf)
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman (Pantheon)
2006 Winner
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl (Viking)
A darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and suspense tale told through the voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. Blue is clever, deadpan, and possesses a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge. In her final year of high school at an elite North Carolina school, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their teacher, Hannah Schneider. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), the novel combines suspense, self-parody, and storytelling.
Marisha Pessl graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, she lives in New York City.
2006 Finalists
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner (Little Brown)
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Cellophane by Maria Arana (Dial)
Send Me by Patrick Ryan (Dial)
