Fall for the Book and the Institute for Immigration Research’s New American Voices Award recognizes recently published works that illuminate the complexity of the human experience as told by immigrants, whose work is historically underrepresented in writing and publishing. The 2026 Longlist entries were chosen by judges Donna Hemans, Angie Cruz and Weike Wang.
The 2026 longlist includes:
Cages, Chantel Acevedo
Men Like Ours, Bindu Bansinath
Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You, Julián Delgado Lopera
Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter, Ada Ferrer
Nadezhda in the Dark, Yelena Moskovich
Elected American: From Red China to Blue Maryland, Lily Qi
People Who Live Alone Talk Too Much, Sofi Stambo
The three finalists will be announced later this summer, and they will join the judges for an award ceremony and reading to discuss their work. The event will be hosted by Fall for the Book during the October festival (October 6-10, 2026) at George Mason University’s Fairfax, VA Campus. Previous winners of the New American Voices Award are: Hernan Diaz’s In the Distance, Melissa Rivero’s The Affairs of the Falcóns, Lysley Tenorio’s The Son of Good Fortune, Patricia Engel’s Infinite Country, Sindya Bhanoo’s Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, Rachel Heng’s The Great Reclamation, Shahnaz Habib’s Airplane Mode, and Shubha Sunder’s Optional Practice Training.