The Center for Fiction has named Ben Fountain as the winner of the 2012 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. He won the $10,000 prize for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.
The judging panel included American writers Francisco Goldman, Lev Grossman, Heidi Julavits, Paul La Farge and Bonnie Nadzam. Prior to establishing his career as a writer, Fountain worked as an attorney.
Here’s more from the release: “Fountain has received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, a Whiting Writers Award, an O.Henry Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes, among other honors and awards. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk was shortlisted for the National Book Award this year”