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.
Like Any Normal Day
While the sport would never be entirely free of peril, the dangers that remained embedded in it called upon young men to prove themselves in ways that no other… More
The Intake Office
So much time is wasted when they won’t do the simplest things they’re asked. The newly dead, Bea thought, are just pathetic. More
The Humbug
"The Philosophy of Composition” is a lovely little essay, but, as Poe himself admitted, it’s a bit of jiggery-pokery, too. More
The Cardboard House
You do not understand how one can possibly go to school so early in the morning, especially when there are esplanades and the sea below. More
The Island of Second Sight
People ate differently here, talked differently, scolded differently. I would have to adapt. I realized this within the hour during which I was the wideeyed observer of this nation’s… More
The Ground
This is just one of many / Beautiful moments I've been a part of but can't / (And won't ever) remember. More
The Shadow Book
First are the kinds of shadow books that fail to be written: the Africana Encyclopedia by Du Bois; the second novels of Jean Toomer or Ralph Ellison that never… More
Sissies’ Scrapbook
"It’s the awful power of having exactly what you want. I’m sure it’s not the freeing, liberating thing you expect it to be." More
The Shock of the Lenders and Other Poems by Jorge Santiago Perednik
I was running with the spear which was a pencil in my hand after the bird with white wings. More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
