On April 23, Aspen Words announced the winner of the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, which awards $35,000 each year to “a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.”
This year’s winner, chosen by a jury consisting of Dr. John Deasy, Louise Erdrich, Ben Fountain, Vanessa Hua and Tayari Jones, is Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars.
“Every tribal nation has its own story that deserves fierce emotional and intellectual telling,” said the jury in a statement. “Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, takes us from the Sand Creek Massacre to Oakland, California. On the way there, his characters become the bearers of America’s history of violence, the vessels of trauma and spirituality, and the wandering stars of addiction and redemption. Wandering Stars serves to deepen and inform Orange’s fine debut novel There, There, but it also stands on its own as a mesmerizing epic drama.”
Wandering Stars was selected from a shortlist that included Percival Everett’s James, Afabwaje Kurian’s Before the Mango Ripens, Ruben Reyes Jr.’s There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, and Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep.
You can watch the full ceremony here.