Book award finalists are 'debut novelists' in name only

NEW YORK (AP) — In the minds and official records of the publishing community, Sarah Thankham Mathews is a first-time author. Her novel “All This Could Be Different” has been widely praised as a promising start for the 31-year-old Indian American, whose narrative about a young immigrant's personal and professional conflicts is a finalist for the National Book Awards.

But for Mathews and fellow nominees Tess Gunty and Alejandro Varela, the debuts that brought them recognition and acclaim are far from their initial efforts. Like countless other authors, the three finalists had written for years before the public was able to see their work, attempting novels and stories eventually set aside, discovering how best to structure their time, absorbing and discarding influences and styles as they searched for an elusive and precious literary grail: their own voice.

“So many of my early efforts were just me trying to find out what I wanted to write about,” Mathews says.

Fiction judges highlighted emerging writers for this year's National Book Awards ceremony, to be held Wednesday in New York. Gunty, Mathews and Varela were chosen for first-time publications and Jamil Jan Kochai for his second book, the story collection “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak." Gayl Jones is the category's lone established author, picked for her novel “The Birdcatcher,” published more than 45 years after her own celebrated debut, “Corregidora.”