Brandon Taylor’s ‘Filthy Animals’ wins $20,000 Story Prize for short fiction

NEW YORK » Brandon Taylor’s “Filthy Animals” has won the Story Prize, a $20,000 honor for collections of short fiction.

“Taylor is incredibly attuned to the slightest shift in the emotional weather in his characters and writes with absolute precision and compassion about their desires, vulnerabilities, failings, joys, and longings,” prize judges wrote in a statement. “His careful attention makes these very ordinary people extraordinary. His sentences are finely tuned, his language subtle and gorgeous.”

The finalists, Lily King for “Five Tuesdays in Winter” and J. Robert Lennon for “Think of Me,” will each receive $5,000.

The Story Prize was established in 2004.

Previous winners include Lauren Groff, Anthony Doerr and Edwidge Danticat.