Featured Honorees
PEN America Literary Awards honorees have produced some of the most exceptional literary works of the past 50 years. Read interviews with or excerpts of work by featured authors and translators below.
States of Shock
CHARACTERSColonelStubbsGlory BeeWhite ManWhite WomanStubbs: MY THING HANGS LIKE DEAD MEAT!!! (Pause. White couple turns and stares at Stubbs. The Colonel ignores them. He’s busy taking several toy soldiers, tanks,… More
A Glimpse Is All I Can Stand
A Glimpse Is All I Can StandNew Smyrna Beach, Florida1972(Based on a True Story) 1.Mama she say shh.She say shhh.She say, quiet baby. 2.In the beginningit was just meand Lizwith Mommaon… More
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
10. Young OsamaAl-Thaghr sat on several dozen arid acres lined by eucalyptus trees, whose branches were twisted by winds from the Red Sea. The campus spread north from the… More
King of a Hundred Horsemen
Marie Étienne, born in Menton in the Alpes-Maritimes, spent her childhood in Indochina, in what is now Vietnam, during the Second World War and the beginning of the Viet… More
An Aquarium
Seahorse It is said an encounter with a seahorsein a dream is an encounter with the un-conscious. Is this because bothevoke delicate armor? Beneathhistory is another history we’ve madewithout… More
The Dark Side
Two years later, Kleinman was exonerated by the Department of Defense’s investigation. He was thanked for upholding the law by the Inspector General at the Joint Forces command and… More
Conrad Loomis & the Clothes Ray
He called me up one night about 2 in the morning and said he hated to disturb me, but he had something which could get us both rich if… More
Fady Joudah: Proof of Kindness, Checkpoint
Fady Joudah was a finalist for the 2008 Poetry in Translation Award for The Butterfly’s Burden, a collection of three recent books by Mahmoud Darwish. Proof of KindnessTaxi driver drives… More
“What Happened to the Baby?”
When I was a child, I was often taken to meetings of my Uncle Simon’s society, the League for a Unified Humanity. These meetings, my mother admitted, were not… More
Conversations in Tusculum
Tusculum, a town in the Alban Hills, fifteen miles southeast of Rome, is home to many country villas owned by wealthy and politically well-connected Romans. More
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