The Neon Wilderness (1947) is the first short-story collection by American writer Nelson Algren.

Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters[2] the same year.

They revolve around the lower classes: workers and unemployed, drunkards and gamblers, prostitutes and hustlers, small-businessmen and policemen.

Unlike Dickens or Zola, their general tone is tragi-comedy or sympathetic satire.

The year the collection was released, Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a grant from Chicago's Newberry Library.