Here are the finalists for the 2025 Gotham Book Prize.
Hooray, a spot of good news! The Gotham Book Prize, given annually to recognize a new book about New York City, has just released its list of finalists.
Formed in 2020 by Howard Wolfson of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bradley Tusk, who owns the indie bookstore P&T Knitwear, the Gotham Prize has become a high metropolitan honor.
Previous winners include Colson Whitehead (Crook Manifesto), Sidik Fontana (Stories From the Tenants Downstairs), and James McBride (Deacon King Kong).
This year, a record-breaking crop of fourteen books have made the long list.
Xochitl Gonzalez, Anita de Monte Laughs Last
Prithi Kanakamedala, Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough
Guy Trebay, Do Something: Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of ’70s New York
Rumaan Alam, Entitlement
Joél Leon, Everything and Nothing at Once
Muriel Leung, How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster
Lisa Ko, Memory Piece
Nicole Gelinas, Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car
Ian Frazier, Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough
Tricia Romano, The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture
Yasmin Zaher, The Coin
Anna Akbari, There Is No Ethan
Andrew Boryga, Victim
In a joint statement, Tusk and Wolfson praised a diverse assortment. “Each of these fourteen finalists have captured a compelling and unique slice of the New York City story. Whether fiction or nonfiction, set in decades past or even the future, these books reflect the vibrancy, complexity, and resilience that define New York.”
The award jury includes writers, editors, academics, and Dennis M. Walcott, the Queens Public Library President.
The fifth ever winner will be named later this spring, and will receive a $50,000 prize.
Brittany Allen
Brittany K. Allen is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn.
