Aotearoa author Sharni Wilson shortlisted for the 2026 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
By At the Bay | I te Kokoru | Posted: Friday Jun 12, 2026
The Stanford University Libraries shares the shortlist for the twelfth William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Saroyan Prize), intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation. Winners and finalists will be announced in the northern hemisphere late summer/early fall.
This is only the second time a New Zealander has been shortlisted for this prize in the Fiction category since it launched in 2003. The first time was Bonnie Etherington for The Earth Cries Out in 2018. Past short lists, finalists and winners include Helen DeWitt, Paul Lynch, Rivka Galchen, Hari Kunzru, Ben Lerner, Carmen Maria Machado, Alexander Chee and Jennifer Croft.
About the book
Selected by David Eggleton and Harry Ricketts in the 2024 manuscript competition for a hybrid collection and published by At the Bay | I te Kokoru, One to many delves into relationships and their beginnings, middles and ends; how one person relates to another or to many others in circles of intimacy and exclusion.
Prose, poetry and translation hybridise at unexpected intersections and dance in surreal meta-landscapes. An arresting, exhilarating bricolage with deft zigzagging between genres.
Order the book here: atthebay.org/one-to-many-and-other-experiments
About the author
Sharni Wilson is an Aotearoa New Zealand writer of fiction and a literary translator from the Japanese. Her work has appeared in Landfall, the Malahat Review and World Literature Today, among others. In 2020 she was a finalist for Lunch Ticket’s Gabo Prize, and in 2023 she won the inaugural At the Bay | I te Kokoru award for her hybrid collection, One to Many and other experiments, which has recently been shortlisted for the 2026 William Saroyan International Prize.
Latest translation: anmly.org/ap42/sharni-wilson-translates-tamaki-senomoto
Website: sharniwilson.com
シャーニ・ウィルソン
作家、文芸翻訳者。ニュージーランド・ハミルトン生まれ。NZ、北米、ヨーロッパで作品を発表。翻訳者として、江國香織氏、高野史緒氏等の日本文学の翻訳に携わり、2020年ガボ賞最終候補。作家として、『One to Many and other experiments』がAt the Bay | I te Kokoruの2023年文学賞を受賞、2026年第12回ウィリアム・サローヤン国際賞最終候補。
Poem excerpt from the book
incense (translation)
by Ibuki Tohno
Autumn’s calendar peels away, the cold has deepened.
Call it the season of skin’s yearning.
Intimately moved,
men soon crave that warmth, but
what women want is not mere heat.
Women wish the scent of that beloved one’s throat
would saturate their bodies like smoke.
A woman’s sense of smell can be true as a cat’s.
Next time, when you come
scent my clothes through with your musk.
On nights when the chill penetrates to the bone
as the Heian ladies once did, I burn fragrance and think of you.
薫物
遠野 息吹
秋の暦がはがれ、寒さが厳しくなりました。
人肌の恋しくなる季節ともいえましょう。
しんみりと感じ入ると、
男の人たちは、すぐに温度を乞いたがるけれど、
女の人たちがほしいのは、温度なんかではありません。
女の人たちは、恋しいあの人の首元の匂いを
体いっぱい燻らせたいのです。
女の人たちの嗅覚は、ときに猫のように正直です。
今度、貴方が来てくれた暁には
私の衣すべてに貴方の匂いを移していって。
冷気が骨まで染み入る夜には
平安の女性たちのように香を焚いて貴方を想ふ。