Tayari Jones Takes Home Aspen Words Literary Prize For 'An American Marriage'
The novel earned Jones the $35,000 award for tackling difficult social issues in fiction. The prize's head judge says the book is "going to have a place in the literary imagination for a long time."
Updated at 9:40 p.m. ET
For judges of the second annual Aspen Words Literary Prize, there was little question who ought to walk away with the award. In the end, in fact, the decision was unanimous: The panel picked An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones.
"It's a book for the long haul," writer Samrat Upadhyay told NPR. Upadhyay, a finalist for , chaired this year's panel of judges. And he said that with , Jones managed to craft a novel that's "going to have a place in the literary imagination for a
