For the second year in a row PEN International gives out the New Voices Award which aims to aspire young writers whose work has already been published, but not in the book form.

The lucky nominees who made it to the shortlist of only three names are Kasim Bazil (PEN Central Asia) from Kyrgyzstan, Marina Babanskaya (PEN Saint Petersburg) from Russia and Amalia Cernat (PEN Romania) from Romania.

The jury consisting of Xi Chuan, Kiran Desai, Alberto Manguel, Alexandre Postel ja Kamila Shamsie chooses the laureate among the three candidates who will be announced on October 1 by Ukrainian novelist Andrei Kurkov during the 80th PEN Congress in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

The finalists’ entries for the competition are available here.