Ten writers will receive $50,000 each as winners of the 2009 Whiting Writers' Awards, presented by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the program has awarded more than $6 million to 250 poets, fiction and nonfiction writers and playwrights, including Denis Johnson, Mona Simpson, Tony Kushner, Jorie Graham, Gretel Ehrlich, Michael Cunningham, Alice McDermott, William T. Vollman, Ian Frazier, David Foster Wallace, Suzan-Lori Parks, Mark Doty, Jeffrey Eugenides, C.D.Wright and Colson Whitehead.
This year's recipients are fiction writers Adam Johnson, Nami Mun, Salvatore Scibona and Vu Tran; nonfiction writers Michael Meyer and Hugh Raffles; poets Jericho Brown, Jay Hopler and Joan Kane; and playwright Rajiv Joseph.
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Finalists for the Prix Goncourt, whose winner will be announced November 2, are (according to the Independent):
- Des hommes by Laurent Mauvignier
- Trois femmes puissantes by Marie Ndiaye
- La vérité sur Marie by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
- Les heures souterraines by Delphine de Vigan