The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is “the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace.

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Their goals are:

• To promote peace by encouraging people to read, share, and appreciate literary works about peace,
• To promote the recognition of literature as a force in achieving peace, and
• To establish prizes to recognize writers and the role their books play in educating people about peace. 

Here are this year’s finalists:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

No Man’s Land by Elizabeth Samet

The Other Side by Lacy J. Johnson

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs

There Was and There Was Not by Meline Toumani

Who We Be: the Colorization of America by Jeff Chang