The 2021 Tournament of Books was presented by Field Notes, and that year’s Rooster went to Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, who had this to say about the win:

This is so cool. I’ve long been a fan of the Tournament of Books (I even served as a judge once). With previous books I’d thought about how exciting it would be just to get shortlisted—so this is bonkers. I am grateful to the ToB organizers for creating and continuing a unique event that gets people discussing books with intelligence and passion, to the judges and guests and Commentariat for supplying that intelligence and passion, and to all the authors for writing the great books they wrote. I always learn a lot from the judgments and the comments, and this year was no exception. Thank you again—it’s an honor to have been part of a ToB.