Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington is an American author who won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction twice — for Lot (2019) in 2020 and for Family Meal (2023) in 2024. Lot is a debut story collection set in Houston's outer neighbourhoods and exploring queer Black and Brown men and their families. Family Meal is a novel about grief, chosen family, and the complicated bonds between gay men. Washington is also the author of Memorial (2020), a novel that follows a Black American man and his Japanese American boyfriend as their relationship is tested by family crises on opposite sides of the Pacific. Memorial was widely praised and became a beloved work of queer literary fiction. Washington was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and his writing is deeply rooted in the city's Gulf Coast neighbourhoods. He has written for The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, and numerous other publications. He is widely regarded as one of the most important young writers in American fiction.