Karen Russell
2026
Finalist for the National Book Award
The Antidote, longlisted for the National Book Award, is a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters — including a “Prairie Witch” who serves as a bank vault for memories, a Polish wheat farmer with a mysteriously spared crop, and a New Deal photographer whose magical camera reveals the town’s past and potential future. Their fates become entangled after a dust storm ravages their small Nebraska town. Ultimately, the novel serves as a reckoning with national forgetting, particularly America’s history of “settler amnesia” and its impact on the land and the lives of those within it. Karen Russell is the author of six books of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, son, and daughter.
“To embark on the adventure of reading The Antidote is to place yourself under the enchanting and challenging care of a writer who is guilty of actual witchcraft.” —The Washington Post.
“Russell’s lyrical writing dazzles on every page.” —The New York Times.
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