“Kalimamukwento reliably delivers emotionally charged stories with complex characters that confront the darker side of society, and her latest novel is no exception…Kalimamukwento expertly explores the insidious nature of toxic patriarchal systems, revealing how easily people cling to the very structures that cause them harm. Her prose is unyielding and tender, searing the desires and pains of each character indelibly into the heart and mind of every reader. An extraordinary read.”

–Booklist, starred review

“The Tavern at the End of History begins with a gesture of kindness and from that small aperture it leads you steadily onwards into places of exhilarating, wonderful strangeness. This is a novel of ideas, arguments, identity, angels—and yes, history. I loved it.”

—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love

It’s been our immense pleasure to read such talented entries this year, and we had a deeply difficult time choosing between them. Below are our short- and longlist honorees.

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce the winner of this year’s Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction: One is Three by Ruyan Meng. It was selected from a pool of hundreds of manuscripts and eventually judged by three celebrated Dzanc Books authors: Tara Isabel Zambrano (Ruined a Little When We Are Born), Eugene Cross (Miss Me Forever), and Mubanga Kalimamukwento (The Shipikisha Club), winner of last year’s Prize for Fiction.

“The novel’s scenes are compact and eventful, and its sentences direct and percussive. The hardboiled depiction of extreme lawlessness invites comparisons to Graham Greene. And like Phil Klay’s outstanding novel “Missionaries” (2020), also about America’s interventions in Colombia’s civil unrest, the realistic story doubles as a kind of allegory of modern war, in which alliances and rationales are fluid, money is primary and violence generates more violence. “It was transgression to be alive,” Orejas thinks in a particularly infernal scene, and there is a sense in this powerful novel that freedom from sin is only truly granted to the dead.” —Wall Street Journal

"Lovers in exile reckon with the weight of history over the course of one winter’s night in Berlin. ...  A lyrical, sinuous exploration of queer love and diasporic grief."

–Kirkus Reviews

A statement on the killing of Renée Nicole Good

Are eBooks your preferred reading method? Take advantage of the Dzanc Books eBook Club and receive one Dzanc ebook per month!

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize: When I Was a Stranger by David Nikki Crouse. In addition to publication by Dzanc in Spring 2027, the prize also comes with a $2,500 advance.

It’s been our immense pleasure to read such talented entries this year, and we had a deeply difficult time choosing between them. Below are our short- and longlist honorees.

“For the poet, no skill is more of service than observation—what is there, what once was and will be, where love left a mark. In this regard, Robert Fanning looks up to very few.” 

—Foreword Reviews

We’re excited to announce our Friends of Dzanc Books Membership Program. If you’ve loved our books, our programs, or our ethos, our tiered memberships allow you to support the press on a recurring basis and receive exclusive benefits, discounts, and products, from discounts and Dzanc gear to early access to upcoming releases—or, my favorite, the annual curated Editors’ Book Selection.

November 30, 2021: It was our honor to read and review hundreds of submissions from countless talented authors for this year’s Short Story Collection Prize. Though narrowing them down was a nearly impossible task, we’re proud to celebrate these works as the short- and longlist honorees.

It’s been our immense pleasure to read such talented entries this year, and we had a deeply difficult time choosing between them. Below are our short- and longlist honorees.

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize: Ghost Maps by Annalisa Bolin. In addition to publication by Dzanc in Spring 2027, the prize also comes with a $1,500 advance.

“David Tromblay has a gift for short, sweet, snappy Native pulp fictions stories that aren’t full of crap stereotypes, that are entertaining without being ethnographic time sucks.”

—Theo Van Alst Jr., Ph.D., co-editor of Never Whistle at Night

"Before the Mango Ripens is a historical novel that avoids predictable oppositions. Its characters’ relationships and internal qualities are complex, its locals speak in indigenous Gbagyi, and its focus is realistic throughout. It depicts an array of individual viewpoints, desires, and motivations, spotlighting the challenges of political self-determination and personal fulfillment with skill." —Foreword Reviews

"Christian Moody is a marvelous storyteller, somehow both innovative and old-fashioned. The stories in Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds are full of beauty, and also full of a creeping sense of menace and dread. You read these stories the way you would read the Brothers Grimm, and the modern masters Shirley Jackson and Kelly Link: with a sense of wonder at how well the author knows we humans at our best and at our worst. We are strange in our hearts, and these stories are gripping as they show how much it costs us to try and keep that strangeness hidden. Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds will keep you up at night and you will still be thinking about it the next morning. What a debut!" –Brock Clarke, author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? and I, Grape

We're heartbroken to lose Dan Wickett this week. Steve Gillis, founder of Dzanc, shared the following statement:

Earlier this week, after a prolonged and brave battle against a heart condition that he had been suffering with for sometime, Dan Wickett lost his fight and went off to be with the angels.

“Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and deeply felt, Guest Privileges is an exhilarating journey through unfamiliar terrain. It is a story of queerness in the context of the Middle East, but it will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has yearned to feel at home.”- Susan Orlean, author of THE ORCHID THIEF