The Neustadt International Prize for Literature announced its nine finalists for the 2024 prize, which includes emeritus professor of creative writing Juan Felipe Herrera. 

Prize jurors will announce the winner on October 24, during the Neustadt Lit Fest, hosted by World Literature Today and the University of Oklahoma. The winner will also receive a $50,000 cash award. 

Herrera, who became the first Mexican American U.S. Poet Laureate, was nominated for his book of poems, “Every Day We Get More Illegal” (City Lights, 2020).

World Literature Today, housed at the University of Oklahoma, sponsors the prize. According to its website, the Neustadt Prize is the first international literary award of its scope to originate in the United States and is one of few international prizes for which poets, novelists, screenwriters and playwrights are equally eligible. Since 1970, it has been awarded every other year to a living writer in recognition of a significant body of work.

Past winners include Gabriel García Márquez, Czesław Miłosz and Edwidge Danticat. The 2022 Neustadt Prize winner was Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop.