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Six books with titles in French.
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Winners of 2021 Neureuther Essay Contest Announced

By WashU Libraries

The Washington University Libraries are happy to announce the winners of the 34th 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 University Libraries, the contest was designed to inspire reading for pleasure among students and to encourage the development of personal book collections.

The competition offers four cash awards to full-time Washington University students: $1,000 and $500 at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Participants submit brief essays about the books in their collections. Washington University faculty members serve as judges for the contest.

This year, Sophie Levin, a PhD candidate in English and comparative literature, won the top prize in the graduate category for the essay “’Crossfires: Foreign Souls and Lands’ and Feminist Modernist Recovery in Translation.” Zenique Gardner Perry, who is working on an MFA in creative nonfiction, came in second with “An Inheritance.”

  • Sophie Levin
  • Zenique Gardner Perry

In the undergraduate category, Noah Slaughter, a junior majoring in German, took first place for the essay “My Literary Web.” Tirzah Reed, a senior pursuing a major in art and a minor in educational studies, won second place for “Plants, Dishes, and Stray Bullets.”

  • Noah Slaughter
  • TIrzah Reed

The organizing committee thanks all of the students who participated in this year’s contest. For more information about the competition, contact Director of Communications Kimberly Singer.