WashU Libraries are pleased to announce the winners of the 38th annual Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition. Named for Carl Neureuther, a 1940 graduate of the Washington University School of Business who set up an endowed book fund for the Libraries, the contest was designed to inspire reading for pleasure among students and encourage the development of personal book collections.

The competition is open to all full-time Washington University students, and awardees win four cash prizes of $1500 and $750 at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Participants submit brief essays about the books in their collections. WashU faculty read the essays to select the award-winning entries.

Undergraduate Student Winners

In the undergraduate category, Rosalynde Swidler, a senior majoring in global studies, was awarded the first prize for her essay, “The Books That Bring Me Back to Her.” Sanayah Mulla-Feroze, a sophomore majoring in biology, won the second prize for her essay, “The Stories We Inherit and the Books That Question Them.”

Graduate Student Winners

Kim Lacey, a doctoral candidate in history, won the first prize in the graduate category for her essay, “The Weight of Memory: A Library of Fragments from the Soviet Steppe.” Sylvia Sukop, a PhD candidate in Germanic Languages & Literatures / International Writers Track, won the second prize for her essay, “‘Indelible Always’: Recollecting May Swenson.”

The organizing committee thanks all the students who participated in this year’s contest. Award-winning essays from the Neureuther competition (2003 to the present) are available to access on Open Scholarship.