Author Tiphanie Yanique has won the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize for her novel, Land of Love and Drowning (Riverhead Books/The Penguin Group).
The annual prize, awarded by The Center for Fiction, was presented to Yanique at the The Center for Fiction’s Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner in New York City on December 9. Last year’s winner Margaret Wrinkle, presented the award, which includes a $10,000 cash purse.
Here is more about the novel from the press release:
Her novel is placed in the early 1900s when the Virgin Islands were transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half-brother. Each of them is unusually beautiful and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them.