PEN America is thrilled to announce the longlists for the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards. Our awards are juried by panels of esteemed, award-winning writers, editors, booksellers, and critics. Learn about the PEN America Literary Awards judges here.
This year’s awards will confer more than $370,000 to writers and translators whose exceptional literary works were published in 2018. Spanning fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, essays, science writing, sports writing, translation, and more, these longlisted books are bound to help you fulfill your gift giving needs in time for the holiday season. Please note: the PEN/Hemingway list will be announced in January 2019.
Stay tuned for further announcements about finalists and winners of the following awards: PEN/Jean Stein Book of the Year Award, Nabokov Award for International Literature, PEN/Osterweil Award for Poetry, PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, PEN/Pels Theater Award, PEN/Magid Award for Excellence in Editing, PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award.
The finalists for all book awards will be announced in January 2019. The winners will be celebrated at the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26 at the NYU Skirball Center in NYC. Find out more about the event or purchase tickets here.
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000)
To an author whose debut collection of short stories published in 2018 represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.
White Dancing Elephants, Chaya Bhuvaneswar (Dzanc Books)
IndieBound | Amazon
A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press)
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Some Trick, Helen DeWitt (New Directions)
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Basements and Other Museums, Vedran Husić (Black Lawrence Press)
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Bloodshot Stories, Jeff P. Jones (Sunshot Press)
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Half Gods, Akil Kumarasamy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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Her Adult Life, Jenn Scott (Acre Books)
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The Island Dwellers, Jen Silverman (Random House)
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Heads of the Colored People: Stories, Nafissa Thompson-Spires (37 INK, Atria)
IndieBound | Amazon
Bring Out the Dog, Will Mackin (Random House)
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PEN Open Book Award ($5,000)
To an exceptional book-length work of any genre by an author of color, published in the United States in 2018.
Cape Verdean Blues, Shauna Barbosa (University of Pittsburgh Press)
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Brother, David Chariandy (Bloomsbury Publishing)
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All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung (Catapult)
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How to Sit: A Memoir in Stories and Essays, Tyrese Coleman (Mason Jar Press)
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The Terrible, Yrsa Daley-Ward (Penguin Books)
IndieBound | Amazon
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan (Alfred A. Knopf)
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Teeth Never Sleep, Ángel García (University of Arkansas Press)
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Heads of the Colored People, Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Atria)
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Call Me Zebra, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
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Eye Level, Jenny Xie (Graywolf Press)
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JUDGES: Hanif Abdurraquib, Cristina Arreola, Richie Narvaez, Kevin Nguyen, Elissa Washuta, Sunil Yapa
PEN Translation Prize ($3,000)
For a book-length translation of prose from any language into English published in 2018.
Nevada Days, Bernardo Atxaga (Graywolf Press)
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
IndieBound | Amazon
The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter, Matei Calinescu (NYRB)
Translated from the Romanian by Adriana Calinescu
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Disoriental, Négar Djavadi (Europa Editions)
Translated from the French by Tina Kover
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The Stone Building and Other Places, Aslı Erdoğan (City Lights)
Translated from the Turkish by Sevinç Türkkan
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Mourning, Eduardo Halfon (Bellevue Literary Press)
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn
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Moon Brow, Shahriar Mandanipour (Restless Books)
Translated from the Persian by Sara Khalili
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Love, Hanne Ørstavik (Archipelago Books)
Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken
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CoDex 1962, Sjón (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
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Trick, Domenico Starnone (Europa Editions)
Translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Aetherial Worlds, Tatyana Tolstaya (Alfred A. Knopf)
Translated from the Russian by Anya Migdal
IndieBound | Amazon
PEN AWARD FOR POETRY IN TRANSLATION ($3,000)
For a book-length translation of poetry from any language into English published in 2018.
The Shutters, Ahmed Bouanani (New Directions)
Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
IndieBound | Amazon
Aperture, Jacek Dehnel (Zephyr Press)
Translated from the Polish by Karen Kovacik
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Revolution Goes Through Walls, Safaa Fathy (SplitLevel Texts)
Translated from the Arabic by Safaa Fathy and Pierre Joris
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Today, Juan Gelman (co•im•press)
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Rose Bradford
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Autobiography of Death, Kim Hyesoon (New Directions)
Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi
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Negative Space, Luljeta Lleshanaku (New Directions)
Translated from the Albanian by Ani Gjika
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A Certain Plume, Henri Michaux (NYRB)
Translated from the French by Richard Sieburth
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Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania, Adam Mickiewicz (Archipelago)
Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston
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Stormwarning, Kristín Tómasdóttir (Phoneme Media)
Translated from the Icelandic by K.B. Thors
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Asymmetry, Adam Zagajewski (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
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PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000)
For a book of essays published in 2018 that exemplifies the essay form.
We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival, Jabari Asim (Picador)
IndieBound | Amazon
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
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Ladies Lazarus, Piper J. Daniels (Tarpaulin Sky Press)
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A Mouth is Always Muzzled, Natalie Hopkinson (The New Press)
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This Will Be My Undoing, Morgan Jerkins (Harper Perennial)
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Impossible Owls, Brian Phillips (FSG Originals)
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Feel Free, Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)
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Against Memoir, Michelle Tea (Feminist Press)
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MINE: Essays, Sarah Viren (University of New Mexico Press)
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The Souls of Yellow Folk, Wesley Yang (W. W. Norton)
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PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography ($5,000)
For a distinguished biography published in 2018.
Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World, Andrea Barnet (Ecco)
IndieBound | Amazon
Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster, Stephen L. Carter (Henry Holt & Co.)
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After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet, Julie Dobrow (W. W. Norton)
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Neruda: The Poet’s Calling, Mark Eisner (Ecco)
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Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown, Lauren Hilgers (Crown Publishing)
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We Met in Paris: Grace Frick and Her Life with Marguerite Yourcenar, Joan E. Howard (University of Missouri Press)
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Making Oscar Wilde, Michele Mendelssohn (Oxford University Press)
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Looking for Lorraine, Imani Perry (Beacon Press)
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Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly, Joshua Rivkin (Melville House)
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Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography, Julia Van Haaften (W. W. Norton)
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PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION ($10,000)
To honor a distinguished book of general nonfiction published in 2017 or 2018.
One Person, No Vote, Carol Anderson (Bloomsbury Publishing)
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American Prison, Shane Bauer (Penguin Press)
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The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
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Amity and Prosperity, Eliza Griswold (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
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The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement, Matthew Horace (Hachette Books)
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The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq, Dunya Mikhail (New Directions Publishing)
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Dreamers: How Young Indians are Changing the World, Snigdha Poonam (Harvard University Press)
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The Girl From Kathmandu, Cam Simpson (Harper)
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The Making of a Dream, Laura Wides-Muñoz (Harper)
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In a Day’s Work, Bernice Yeung (The New Press)
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PEN/E.O. WILSON PRIZE FOR LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING ($10,000)
For a book that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience.
What is Real?, Adam Becker (Basic Books)
IndieBound | Amazon
The World in a Grain, Vince Beiser (Riverhead)
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Timefulness, Marcia Bjornerud (Princeton University Press)
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The Poison Squad, Deborah Blum (Penguin Press)
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The Beginning of Everything, Andrea Buchanan (Pegasus Books)
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Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, Ben Goldfarb (Chelsea Green)
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The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, David Quammen (Simon & Schuster)
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Seaweed Chronicles, Susan Hand Shetterly (Algonquin Books)
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Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds, Lauren Slater (Little, Brown and Company)
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She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, Carl Zimmer (Dutton Books)
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PEN/ESPN AWARD FOR LITERARY SPORTS WRITING ($5,000)
To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2018.
The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer’s Next Superstars, Sebastian Abbot (W. W. Norton)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West, John Branch (W. W. Norton)
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The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism, Howard Bryant (Beacon Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy (Harper)
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Godspeed, Casey Legler (Atria Books)
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Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times, Mark Leibovich (Penguin Press)
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The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey, Rowan Ricardo Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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Limits of the Known, David Roberts (W. W. Norton)
IndieBound | Amazon
Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL, Rob Ruck (The New Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City, Albert Samaha (Public Affairs)
IndieBound | Amazon
