Here are the winners of the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards.
Last night, the great pens of America convened at The Town Hall in NYC as Kal Penn presided over the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards. For those felled by late-winter viruses who desire to get a taste of proceedings, a recording is available here.
Below are this year’s winners:
PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000)
Judges: Lauren Groff, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Madeleine Thien
Winner
Dr. No, Percival Everett (Graywolf Press)
Finalists: Acting Class, Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly), Milkweed Smithereens, Bernadette Mayer (New Directions), If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, Noor Naga (Graywolf Press), The White Mosque, Sofia Samatar (Catapult)
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PEN Open Book Award ($10,000)
Judges: Jenn Baker, Nina McConigley, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Erika L. Sanchez
Winner
The Black Period, Hafizah Augustus Geter (Random House)
Finalists: Shutter, Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime), Gorgoneion, Casey Rocheteau (Noemi Press), All the Flowers Kneeling, Paul Tran (Penguin Books), Last Summer on State Street, Toya Wolfe (William Morrow & Company)
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PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection ($25,000)
Judges: Susan Muaddi Darraj, Chris Gonzalez, Nafissa Thompson Spires
Winner
Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty (Tin House Books)
Finalists: Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, Sindya Bhanoo (Catapult), A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times, Meron Hadero (Restless Books), The Anchored World, Jasmine Sawers (Rose Metal Press), Manywhere, Morgan Thomas (MCD)
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PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel ($10,000)
Judges: Gina Apostol, Oscar Cásares, Matthew Salesses
Winner
Calling For a Blanket Dance, Oscar Hokeah (Algonquin Books)
Finalists: Activities of Daily Living, Lisa Hsiao Chen (W. W. Norton & Company), Shutter, Ramona Emerson (Soho Crime), Little Rabbit, Alyssa Songsiridej (Bloomsbury Publishing), Which Side Are You On, Ryan Lee Wong (Catapult)
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PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($15,000)
Judges: Jill Lepore, John McWhorter, Simon Winchester
Winner
A Left-Handed Woman, Judith Thurman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Finalists: Translating Myself and Others, Jhumpa Lahiri (Princeton University Press), Still No Word From You, Peter Orner (Catapult), Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company), The Green Hour: A Natural History of Home, Alison Townsend (The University of Wisconsin Press)
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PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection ($5,000)
Judges: Molly McCully Brown, Kimiko Hahn, Willie Perdomo, Alison Rollins
Winner
To The Realization of Perfect Helplessness, Robin Coste Lewis (Penguin Random House)
Finalists: Smoking the Bible, Chris Abani (Copper Canyon Press), To The Realization of Perfect Helplessness, Robin Coste Lewis (Penguin Random House), Pink Waves, Sawako Nakayasu (OmniDawn), blood snow, Dg Nanouk Okpik (Wave Poetry), Best Barbarian, Roger Reeves (W. W. Norton & Company)
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PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000)
Judges: Baba Badji, Mona Kareem, Julia Leverone
Winner
The Loose Pearl, Paula Ilabaca Nuñez (Coimpress)
Translated from Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky
Finalists: No Way in the Skin without This Bloody Embrace, Jean D’Amérique (Ugly Duckling Presse), translated from French by Conor Bracken; Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, Forough Farrokhzad (New Directions Publishing), translated from Persian by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.; distant transit, Maja Haderlap (Archipelago Books), translated from German by Tess Lewis; Adela Zamudio: Selected Poetry & Prose, Adela Zamudio (Fuente Fountain Books), translated from Spanish by Lynette Yetter
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PEN Translation Prize ($3,000)
Judges: Layla Benitez-James, Slava Faybysh, Sora Kim-Russell, Elton Uliana
Winner
People from Bloomington, Budi Darma (Penguin Classics)
Translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao
Finalists: The Tatami Galaxy, Tomihiko Morimi (HarperVia), translated from Japanese by Emily Balistrieri; Call Me Cassandra, Marcial Gala (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), translated from Spanish by Anna Kushner;Toño the Infallible, Evelio Rosero (New Directions Publishing), translated from Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean; A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast, Dorthe Nors (Pushkin Press), translated from Danish by Caroline Waight
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PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000)
Judges: Tim Folger, David Hu, Emily Raboteau
Winner
Heartbreak, Florence Williams (W. W. Norton & Company)
Finalists: Vagina Obscura, Rachel E. Gross (W. W. Norton & Company), Sounds Wild and Broken, David George Haskell (Viking), Big Bang of Numbers, Manil Suri (W. W. Norton & Company), An Immense World, Ed Yong (Random House)
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PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000)
Judges: Manu Bhagavan, Silvana Paternostro
Winner
Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, Dan Charnas (MCD)
Finalists: Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, Tomiko Brown-Nagin (Pantheon), G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, Beverly Gage (Viking), Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda, Ruth Harris (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century, Jennifer Homans (Random House)
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PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000)
Judges: Sanjiv Bhattacharya, Geraldo Cadava, Sofija Stefanovic
Winner
The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning, Eve Fairbanks (Simon & Schuster)
Finalists: Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, Kelly Lytle Hernandez (W. W. Norton & Company), South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, Imani Perry (HarperCollinsPublishers), The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind, Martin Sixsmith (Pegasus Books), Solito, Javier Zamora (Hogarth Press)
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