Ethiopian-American author Maya Binyam has been selected as the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 honorees list for 2024. Congrats to Binyam!

The 5 Under 35 honorees list includes a selection of five fiction writers under the age of 35 whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape. Founded in 2006, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 program is sponsored by the Amazon Literary Partnership, and each honoree receives a $1,000 prize.

Each honoree is selected by a literary luminary previously honored by the National Book Foundation. Binyam was selected by Alejandro Varela, 2022 National Book Award Finalist, for her stunning 2023 novel Hangman.

Hangman features an unnamed narrator who returns to his homeland in sub-Saharan Africa. After 26 years in the United States, he sets off on a journey to find his dying brother. Binyam’s novel is a reflection on exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refuge in America and beyond.

Maya Binyam lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is an advisory editor at the Paris Review.

The other four honorees include Zain Khalid, Antonia Angress, Tyriek White, and Jenny Tinghui Zhang. The honorees will be celebrated at the 5 Under 35 Ceremony on May 9 at the Brooklyn Museum. The event will be open to the public, and tickets are available for purchase here.

Congrats to Binyam on this amazing achievement!