Angela Flournoy

Angela Flournoy is an American writer. Her debut novel, The Turner House, won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She was also named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree in 2015, nominated by her former teacher ZZ Packer.

Early life and education Flournoy was raised in Southern California by a mother from Los Angeles and a father from Detroit. Flournoy attended the University of Southern California and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Career After graduating, Flournoy taught writing for the University of Iowa, Trinity Washington University, and the DC Public Library. She published The Turner House in 2015. The New York Times called it "an engrossing and remarkably mature first novel [...] assured and memorable." BuzzFeed describes Flournoy as "the most lauded debut novelist in America," noting her many awards and honors, as well as The Turner House 's strong sales: "According to Bookscan, which tracks around 70% of U.S. book sales, her book has sold over 15,000 copies in paperback and hardcover as of April ; anything over 10,000 is generally considered high for literary fiction."

In 2020, she was scheduled to go on a State Department-sponsored reading tour of Germany. Flournoy canceled at short notice amid US tensions with Iran and published a justification in The New Yorker.

Flournoy attributes her understanding of character development to Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.

The Wilderness was longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction. It was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2025 Kirkus Prize for Fiction.

Works