Announcing the Winner of the 2025 Dzanc prize for fiction

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.

In One Is Three, factory worker Lian Li navigates a culture of state fear and oppression, and his forbidden connection with coworker Zai Tian. “The grim present is filtered through tender yet brutal memories in an exquisitely told story, rendered by a steady hand,” said Kalimamukwento,in praise of the novel. “One is Three is a haunting I will not soon forget.”

Ruyan Meng was born and educated in China. After the Tiananmen Square Protest and Massacre, she defied the state and fled to the United States in 1990. She is the author of Only the Cat Knows (Red Hen Press), winner of the Red Hen Novella Award, and The Morgue Keeper (7.13 Books).

Meng said of winning the prize: “I’m deeply grateful to Dzanc Books for this prize and for believing in One Is Three. Based on a true story, the novel grew out of memory, silence, and survival, shaped by my upbringing in communist China and the long afterlife of exile. It means a great deal to see this work find such a thoughtful home.”

Publication is planned for July 2027.

The Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction was created to recognize daring, original, and innovative writing. Dzanc Books is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization not only committed to producing quality literary works but providing creative writing instruction in public schools through the Dzanc Writers-in-Residence program, and offering low-cost workshops for aspiring authors. For more information, please visit www.dzancbooks.org