Kirstin Quade wins Center for Fiction’s 2021 First Novel Prize
By Nelson A. King
Brooklyn’s Center for Fiction
on Tuesday congratulated
Kirstin Valdez Quade, author
of “The Five Wounds” (W. W.
Norton & Company), on receiving
the 2021 Center for Fiction
First Novel Prize.
The award was announced at
The Center for Fiction’s Annual
Awards Benefit and 200th
Anniversary Celebration.
Last year’s winner, Raven
Leilani, presented Quade
with the award and a prize of
$15,000, The Center of Fiction
said.
It said “The Five Wounds”
was selected by a panel of distinguished
American writers
— Alexander Chee, Susan
Choi, Yaa Gyasi, Raven Leilani
and Dinaw Mengestu.
The shortlist also included
“The City of Good Death” by
Priyanka Champaneri (Restless
Books); “Swimming Back
to Trout River” by Linda Rui
Feng (Simon & Schuster); “The
Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois”
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
(HarperCollins/Harper); “Build
Your House Around My Body”
by Violet Kupersmith (Penguin
Random House/Random
House); “No One Is Talking
About This” by Patricia Lockwood
(Penguin Random House/
Riverhead Books); and “Brood”
by Jackie Polzin (Penguin Random
House/Doubleday).
The Center for Fiction, on 15
Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, said
the shortlisted authors each
received $1,000.
It said Kirstin Valdez Quade
is the author of “Night at the
Fiestas,” winner of the National
Book Critics Circle’s John
Leonard Prize.
She is the recipient of a
“5 Under 35” award from the
National Book Foundation, the
Rome Prize and the Rona Jaffe
Foundation Writer’s Award.
Originally from New Mexico,
Valdez Quade now lives in New
Jersey and teaches at Princeton
University.
In “The Five Wounds”, the
Center said Amadeo Padilla
was “hoping for redemption
through his portrayal of Jesus
in the Good Friday procession
of his small town in New Mexico
when his 15-year-old daughter,
Tropicalfete to end 2021 with a bang Miss South Africa
Continued from Page 33
Caribbean Life, D 34 ecember 17-23, 2021
Angel, shows up pregnant after
fleeing her mother’s house.
“Five generations of the
Padilla family converge during
the baby’s first year, bringing
to life their struggles to
parent children they may not
be equipped to save,” said The
Center for Fiction, a literary
nonprofit that brings diverse
communities together to develop
and share a passion for fiction.
Founded as the Mercantile
Library of New York in
Manhattan, the organization
is now based in the heart of
the Brooklyn cultural district,
“with a 18,000 sq. ft. facility
that offers New Yorkers an
immersive cultural experience
centered on reading and writing,”
the Center said.
Throughout the year, it said
it provides a vast array of public
programming, reading groups
and writing workshops.
The Center for Fiction
said its First Novel Prize and
Emerging Writer Fellowships
“help build literary careers.”
It said its KidsRead/KidsWrite
programs “inspire an early love
of reading and writing in public
school students with authorled
events.”
In recent years, the organization’s
programming has
expanded to include storytelling
in all its forms, integrating
music, theater, dance, film,
television and the visual arts
into its exploration of the best
of fiction throughout history
and today.
calfete’s artist and educator,
will feature Tropicalfete stilt
performers, voices, steel pan
ensemble and masqueraders.
Other performers will
include Trinidadian calypsonian,
musician and author
Anslem Douglas; saxophonist
Grenadian Bryan Hurst; pannist
Ricardo Greenaway; and
guitarist Guy Jules.
“The audience will be
entertained by a live band
with different genres of music
from across the globe,” said
Aimable, disclosing that
preeminent Vincentian-born
musical arranger Franklyn
“Frankie” McIntosh and
Douglas will receive the Tropicalfete
Award of Excellence
for their contribution to the
arts.
In addition, Aimable said
students will be presented
with college scholarships.
“Tropicalfete works hard
all year, and we have had a
number of successes expanding
our programs and opening
new doors,” he said. “So,
Dec. 19, the Tropicalfete
family is excited to celebrate
those accomplishment and
this thing called life.
“Tropicafete promises an
entertaining and enjoyable
evening,” he added, stating
that the event commences at
4.00 p.m.
The Brooklyn Music School
Playhouse is located at 176 St.
Felix St. Brooklyn, New York
11217 (between Lafayette and
Hanson Place).
Aimable said Tropicale
serves all New Yorkers with
programming and events in:
Crown Heights, Brownsville,
Prospect Heights, Bedford
Stuyvesant, Park Slope, Flatbush,
East New York, Canarsie,
Fort Greene, Clinton Hill,
Harlem, Lower Manhattan
“and expanding.”
He said the group’s mission
is to develop “the community
in the area of arts and
social services, with the focus
on educating the community
on Caribbean culture.”
Aimable can be reached at
(646)504-3383, ext. 711; or
email alton@tropicalfete.com
and “Supermarket.”
“Eternal Mixtape also has
some big names on the project
with appearances by Damian
Jr. ‘Gong’ Marley, Kabaka Pyramid
and Black Am I,” said Tomlinson,
adding that the project
is “particularly unique as the
mixtape carries a visual tape
component with a full-length
video to accompany the audio
release.
“Jo Mersa Marley is following
the footsteps of his grandfather,
using music as a tool to change
the world, as he drops entertaining
yet thought-provoking
songs,” she continued. “The
release of the much-anticipated
Eternal EP substantiated this
claim, with songs like ‘Made It’,
‘Yo Dawg’, ‘Dream,’ delivering
content and experiences that
listeners can relate with.”
The visual tape of “Eternal”
is hosted on the Jo Mersa Marley
YouTube channel, while the
audio is available on Soundtrack
and Audiomack.
Continued from Page 33
tunately, it’s the world that
convinced us we do not,” she
concluded to loud applause.
Wearing a gold floor-length
gown, designed with cutouts
effect, throughout the
creation, Mswane, a ballerina,
showed confidence, and
walked with an air of royalty
as she sashed across the runway,
and into the hearts of the
panel of judges, that included
Lori Harvey, skin-care mogul,
and daughter of Harvey, host
of the hugely popular Family
Feud game show.
Mswane, after an outstanding
dance performance, wowing
the world in her white
feathered “Dove of Peace”
national costume, during that
category of the pageant.
The beauty, who arrived
with controversy in tow, due
to her country’s boycott of
the pageant because it was
held in Israel, flittered across
the runway, moving her arms
in the air like a butterfly, ultimately
becoming famous as
the second runner-up, next
to Miss India Harnaaz Kaur
Sandhu, the winner, and Miss
Paraguay Nadia Ferreira, first
runner-up.
South Africa had opposed
Israel’s occupation of Palestine
and said it cannot in good
conscience associate itself
with the show.
Continued from Page 33
Jo Mersa Marley’s ‘Eternal Miss South Africa Lalela
Mswane poses during the
Miss Universe pageant in
the Red Sea resort of Eilat,
Israel Dec. 13, 2021. REUTERS/
Ronen Zvulun
Author Kirsten Valdez Quade and the cover of her book
“The Five Wounds.” Holly Andres
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