PEN America is thrilled to announce the longlists for the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards. Our awards are juried by panels of esteemed, award-winning writers, editors, booksellers, and critics. Learn more about each of the PEN America Literary Awards judges here.
This year’s awards will confer nearly $315,000 to writers and translators whose exceptional literary works were published in 2017. 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.
The finalists for all book awards will be announced in January 2018. The winners will be celebrated at the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 20 at the NYU Skirball Center in NYC. Save the Date!
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000)
To an author whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2017—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.
Sonora, Hannah Lillith Assadi (Soho Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Man Who Shot Out My Eye is Dead: Stories, Chanelle Benz (Ecco)
IndieBound | Amazon
Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, Venita Blackburn (University of Nebraska Press)
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What Counts as Love, Marian Crotty (University of Iowa Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
History of Wolves, Emily Fridlund (Atlantic Monthly Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
Cardinal and Other Stories, Alex Higley (Tailwinds Press)
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Her Body and Other Parties: Stories, Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
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A Thousand Distant Radios, Woody Skinner (Atelier26 Books)
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The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, Cherise Wolas (Flatiron Books)
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Sour Heart, Jenny Zhang (Lenny)
IndieBound | Amazon
JUDGES: Mia Alvar, Rion Amilcar Scott, Justin Torres, Claire Vaye Watkins
PEN Open Book Award
To an exceptional book-length work of any genre by an author of color, published in the United States in 2017.
Some Say The Lark, Jennifer Chang (Alice James)
IndieBound | Amazon
Eastman Was Here, Alex Gilvarry (Viking)
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My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir, Jessica B. Harris (Scribner)
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Augustown, Kei Miller (Pantheon)
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The Tower of the Antilles, Achy Obejas (Akashic)
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A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa, Alexis Okeowo (Hachette)
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For Want of Water: and other poems, Sasha Pimentel (Beacon Press)
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Lessons on Expulsion: Poems, Erika L. Sánchez (Graywolf Press)
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Ordinary Beast: Poems, Nicole Sealey (Ecco)
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Because When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, me & THE WORLD, Gina Athena Ulysse (Wesleyan University Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
JUDGES: Eduardo C. Corral, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Quan Barry
PEN Translation Prize
For a book-length translation of prose from any language into English published in 2017.
The Book of Emma Reyes, Emma Reyes (Penguin)
translated from the Spanish by Daniel Alarcon
IndieBound | Amazon
The Book of Whispers, Varujan Vosganian (Yale University Press)
translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth
IndieBound | Amazon
A Horse Walks into a Bar, David Grossman (Vintage)
translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen
IndieBound | Amazon
Out in the Open, Jesus Carrasco (Riverhead Books)
translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
IndieBound | Amazon
The Impossible Fairy Tale, Han Yujoo (Graywolf Press)
translated from the Korean by Janet Hong
IndieBound | Amazon
Affections: A Novel, Rodrigo Hasbun (Simon & Schuster)
translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes
IndieBound | Amazon
Notes of a Crocodile, Qiu Miaojin (New York Review Books)
translated from the Chinese by Bonnie Huie
IndieBound | Amazon
Bark, Georges Didi-Huberman (MIT Press)
translated from the French by Samuel Martin
IndieBound | Amazon
Katalin Street, Magda Szabo (NYRB Classics)
translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
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Black Moses, Alain Mabanckou (The New Press)
translated from the French by Helen Stevenson
IndieBound | Amazon
JUDGES: Eric M. B. Becker, Lisa Hayden, Jenny Wang Medina, Denise Newman, Lara Vergnaud
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000)
For a book of essays published in 2017 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.
Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, Rilla Askew (University of Oklahoma Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, Carina Chocano (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf Press)
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Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, Lauren Elkin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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Sunshine State, Sarah Gerard (Harper Perennial)
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Alpine Apprentice: A Memoir, Sarah Gorham (University of Georgia Press)
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No Time to Spare: Thinking about What Matters, Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
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Homing Instincts, Sarah Menkedick (Pantheon)
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Because It Is So Beautiful: Unraveling the Mystique of the American West, Robert Leonard Reid (Counterpoint Press)
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The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
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JUDGES: Vinson Cunningham, James Fallows, Gillian Tett
PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography ($5,000)
For a distinguished biography published in 2017.
The Trials of a Scold: The Incredible True Story of Writer Anne Royall, Jeff Biggers (Thomas Dunne Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
Grant, Ron Chernow (Penguin Press)
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Richard Nixon: The Life, John A. Farrell (Doubleday)
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Chester B. Himes: A Biography, Lawrence P. Jackson (W. W. Norton & Company)
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You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn, Wendy Lesser (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, Howard Markel (Pantheon Press)
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The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, Lauren Markham (Crown)
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Housman Country: Into the Heart of England, Peter Parker (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
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Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, Lyndal Roper (Random House)
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Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror, Victor Sebestyen (Pantheon Press)
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JUDGES: Joe Jackson, Michelle Legro, Judith Thurman
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.
American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World, David Baron (Liveright)
IndieBound | Amazon
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, Lindsey Fitzharris (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here?, Lawrence M. Krauss (Atria Books)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival , Robert Jay Lifton (The New Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, David Montgomery (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
IndieBound | Amazon
Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River, David Owen (Riverhead Books)
IndieBound | Amazon
No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America, Ron Powers (Hachette Books)
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The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—And Us, Richard O. Prum (Doubleday)
IndieBound | Amazon
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Robert Sapolsky (Penguin Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
JUDGES: Luke Dittrich, Deanna Fei, Dr. Carl Hart
PEN/ESPN AWARD FOR LITERARY SPORTS WRITING ($5,000)
To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2017.
Ali: A Life, Jonathan Eig (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball’s Most Historic Record, John Eisenberg (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
IndieBound | Amazon
What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen, Kate Fagan (Little, Brown and Company)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Arena: Inside the Tailgating, Ticket-Scalping, Mascot-Racing, Dubiously Funded, and Possibly Haunted Monuments of American Sport, Rafi Kohan (Liveright)
IndieBound | Amazon
Off Speed: Baseball, Pitching, and the Art of Deception, Terry McDermott (Pantheon)
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Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966–1971, Leigh Montville (Doubleday)
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City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles, Jerald Podair (Princeton University Press)
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Bones: Brothers, Horses, Cartels, and the Borderland Dream, Joe Tone (One World)
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Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus D’Amato, Mike Tyson & Larry “Ratso” Sloman (Blue Rider Press)
IndieBound | Amazon
The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse, Tom Verducci (Crown Archetype)
IndieBound | Amazon
JUDGES: Chloé Cooper Jones, Sally Jenkins, Joe Nocera
