Pioneering Latino sci-fi novelist wins inaugural literary award
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Novelist Michael Zapata and his book "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau." Photo: Courtesty of Michael Zapata.
Michael Zapata, whose 2020 novel "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" was praised as a crucial work in the growing Latinofuturism movement, has won the inaugural DAG Prize for Literature.
The big picture: The prize was given by musicians Alyssa and Douglas Graham to help "an early-career prose writer whose work expands the possibilities for American writing."
Zoom in: Zapata was awarded the $20,000 prize as he works on his second book, a speculative love noir story set in Chicago's future, and follows the life of a Quechua entomologist and a census taker.
- He was selected from five finalists and 166 applicants.
- The prize funds can be used for research, writing, editing, workshops, residencies, or other activities that facilitate.
State of play: Migrant and refugee crackdowns worldwide amid war, violence, climate change, technological surveillance and the rise of authoritarian rulers are giving fuel to a Latinofuturism and the dystopian immigration novel.
- Dystopian fiction around climate chaos and neo-fascist, theocratic regimes has boomed since the 2010s, but in recent years, more writers have tackled dystopian visions around human migration that serve as warnings.
- Some Latino writers are also being influenced by an artistic movement known as Afrofuturism — speculative and science fiction written by Black writers.
In an interview with Axios, Zapata said that all those movements have shaped him as a novelist, and he's continuing to explore those themes, along with exile and migration.
- "I've grown up with so much science fiction, and Afrofuturism is really sort of like a guiding light."
- That's because the experiences of Black Americans and Latinos in the U.S. are so similar, and writers are exploring what it means to be a person of color in the future, he said.
- "I firmly believe that speculative works and science fiction address the heart of challenging empire and a world that feels unstable."
The intrigue: As the son of an Ecuadorian immigrant father and a Jewish mother, Zapata said he's writing at a time of anti-Latino immigration sentiment and rising antisemitism.
- Fiction is the way he seeks to address themes of the future, while history is being censured or rewritten.
- Zapata teaches at StoryStudio Chicago and Northwestern University.
Flashback: "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" was released just before the pandemic and became a popular book while people were confined to their homes.
- It follows a Dominican immigrant in New Orleans who writes science fiction at the turn of the century and destroys her last novel before she dies. A manuscript in her name is discovered later.
- It was one of the strongest pieces of Latino science fiction writing created and was seen as a model for other writers.
Of note: The DAG foundation also awarded Ziba Rajabi the DAG Prize for Visual Art, and Elizabeth Ziman the DAG Prize for Music.
Go deeper: The rise of the dystopian immigration novel
