Bard Fiction Prize Winner Maya Binyam to Give Reading on October 6
Maya Binyam, winner of the 2025 Bard Fiction Prize. Photo by Tonje Thilisen
Maya Binyam, Bard Fiction Prize winner and writer in residence at Bard College, will read from recent work on Monday, October 6. The reading begins at 6 pm and will be held at Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. This event is free and open to the public. For more information call 845-758-7087.
Maya Binyam received the Bard Fiction Prize for her first novel, Hangman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). The committee wrote: “Maya Binyam’s novel Hangman intrigues from its opening sentence as it builds a mysterious Beckettesque world of dark comic disorientation, never allowing the reader to grow complacent as it explores the essence of belonging and displacement. Cain’s infamous question to God in Genesis echoes in the reader’s mind as we watch Binyam’s unnamed narrator strive to be his brother’s finder, encountering innumerable obstacles in his once-familiar homeland. This existential quest makes us rebuild our assumptions from the ground up: what is a refugee? What is a family? How do we find our way home? Binyam builds a universe of alluring elusivity with consummate authority.”
“I’m honored and overjoyed to have been read so generously by the judges of the Bard Fiction Prize,” said Binyam. “Novel writing, for me, is fundamentally mysterious, strange, and almost impossible. This recognition makes it feel more possible, and inevitable, too. I’m very excited to join Bard’s literary community in the fall, and am beyond grateful for the opportunity to work on my second novel alongside its students and faculty. Knowing I’ll have this time to write is a dream.”
Maya Binyam’s novel Hangman, which was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Literature at Claremont McKenna College. She lives in Los Angeles.
Post Date: 09-24-2025
Maya Binyam received the Bard Fiction Prize for her first novel, Hangman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). The committee wrote: “Maya Binyam’s novel Hangman intrigues from its opening sentence as it builds a mysterious Beckettesque world of dark comic disorientation, never allowing the reader to grow complacent as it explores the essence of belonging and displacement. Cain’s infamous question to God in Genesis echoes in the reader’s mind as we watch Binyam’s unnamed narrator strive to be his brother’s finder, encountering innumerable obstacles in his once-familiar homeland. This existential quest makes us rebuild our assumptions from the ground up: what is a refugee? What is a family? How do we find our way home? Binyam builds a universe of alluring elusivity with consummate authority.”
“I’m honored and overjoyed to have been read so generously by the judges of the Bard Fiction Prize,” said Binyam. “Novel writing, for me, is fundamentally mysterious, strange, and almost impossible. This recognition makes it feel more possible, and inevitable, too. I’m very excited to join Bard’s literary community in the fall, and am beyond grateful for the opportunity to work on my second novel alongside its students and faculty. Knowing I’ll have this time to write is a dream.”
Maya Binyam’s novel Hangman, which was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Literature at Claremont McKenna College. She lives in Los Angeles.
Post Date: 09-24-2025