âFor two decades the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation has elevated the power of the written word to foster understanding, reconciliation, empathy and peace, said Nicholas Raines, executive director of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation in a press release. âThe work of this prize allows readers to step into lives and experiences vastly different from their own."
The 2025 fiction finalists are:
- âBlack Butterfliesâ by Priscilla Morris (Alfred A. Knoph)
- âFreedom is a Feastâ by Alejandro Puyana (Little, Brown and Company)
- âJamesâ by Percival Everett (Penguin Random House, Doubleday)
- âMartyr!â by Kaveh Akbar (Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House US)
- âThe Good Deedâ by Helen Benedict (Red Hen Press)
- âThe Women: A Novelâ by Kristin Hannah (St. Martinâs Publishing Group)
The 2025 nonfiction finalists are:
- âA Map of Future Ruinsâ by Lauren Markham (Penguin Random House, Riverhead Books)
- âJohn Lewisâ by David Greenberg (Simon & Schuster)
- âNuclear War: A Scenarioâ by Annie Jacobson (Penguin Random House, Dutton)
- âSolidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Ideaâ by Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor (Pantheon Books, Penguin Random House)
- âThe Burning Earthâ by Sunil Amrith (W. W. Norton & Company)
- âThe Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diasporaâ by Wendy Pearlman (Liveright Publishing)
The organization praised its initial reading committee for their diligence.
âThe DLPP is so grateful to our First Readers who provide our first round of judging â needless to say, a monumental task," Raines said. âFor 2025 it took 95 DLPP First Readers to get this job done. Our First Readers are tasked to determine that books are of notable literary quality, possess the ability to be of enduring value, and will connect with a wide-ranging audience.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
He also hopes the Dayton community at large will grow more familiar with the finalists this summer.
âWe encourage you to fill your summer reading list with our finalist lists,â Raines said.
Winners and finalists of the 2025 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award will be announced in September.
For more information, visit daytonliterarypeaceprize.org.
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