Freedom is a Feast, Alejandro Puyana’s acclaimed debut novel, a multigenerational saga of love and revolution set in the author’s native Venezuela, is the 2024 Westport Prize for Literature award winner.
Puyana and his work will be honored at The Westport Library on Saturday, September 21, between 1 and 2 pm, in conjunction with StoryFest, the Library’s annual literary festival.
Puyana will receive a $10,000 cash prize and appear at StoryFest, whose lineup of authors includes Roxane Gay, Christopher Golden, Claire Messud, Peng Shepherd, and Joyce Carol Oates. (The list of 50+ attending authors is available on the StoryFest website.)
“I’m so extremely honored,” said Puyana. “Venezuela is going through a rough time right now, with people out on the streets fighting for freedom and democracy. It means so much to have this Venezuelan story highlighted, at a time when we need voices everywhere to stand with us.
“I’m so grateful to the Westport Prize for Literature committee for this great gift, and hopeful that it’ll help put the book in the hands of many more readers.”
Now in its second year, The Westport Prize for Literature is awarded annually to honor an original work of fiction that explores issues in contemporary society. Renowned novelist Zadie Smith was the prize’s inaugural recipient for The Fraud, which was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Independent, and many more.
The other finalists for this year’s honor were How to Read a Book by Monica Wood and skin & bones by Renée Watson.
“Freedom is a Feast is a brilliant kaleidoscope of a novel, reflecting both the sweep of history and the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives,” said Charlotte Rogan, author of The Lifeboat and one of this year’s jurors. “This gorgeous yet propulsive story explores questions of what we owe each other and how to make a difference in turbulent times.”
Submissions for the 2024 prize were read and vetted by a team of volunteer readers — numbering nearly 50 for this year — with the best-reviewed manuscripts advancing to the Westport Prize for Literature jury, which selected this year’s winner.
In addition to Rogan, the jurors for 2024 include book blogger and aggregator Suzanne Leopold, publishing industry veteran Erica Melnichok, and nonfiction writer and former Book of the Month Club judge Nina Sankovitch.
About Freedom is a Feast
In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations. Almost 40 years later, in a poor barrio of Caracas, María, a single mother, ekes out a precarious existence as a housekeeper, pouring her love into Eloy, her young son. Her devotion will not be enough, however, to keep them from disaster. On the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Eloy is wounded by a stray bullet, fracturing her world. Amid the chaos at the hospital, María encounters Stanislavo, now a newspaper editor. Even as the country itself is convulsed by waves of unrest, this twist of fate forces a belated reckoning for Stanislavo, who may yet earn a chance to atone for old missteps before it’s too late.
With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, Freedom Is a Feast announces a major new talent. Puyana has delivered a wise and moving debut about sticking to one’s beliefs at the expense of pain and chaos, about the way others can suffer for our misdeeds even when we have the best of intentions, and about the possibility for redemption when love persists across time.
“Epic doesn’t begin to describe this extraordinary novel,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. “Freedom Is a Feast is as vivid and wondrous as your best dream, as unsettling and unforgettable as your worst. They say you can’t fit the entire world into a novel, but Puyana comes close. What a gift he has given readers, what a profound, shattering, inspiring gift.”
Related: New York Times Book Review: Fighting for Love and Survival as a Country Falls Apart
