Today, PEN is thrilled to announced the longlists for the 2015 PEN Literary Awards, spanning fiction, nonfiction, biography, essays, translation, and more.
Click here to view the shortlists. The winners of the awards will be announced on May 13 with the exception of our Debut Fiction, Art of the Essay, and Open Book Award which will be announced at PEN’s Literary Awards Ceremony on June 8 at The New School in New York City.
2015 PEN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTS
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 2014—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.
JUDGES: Caroline Fraser, Katie Kitamura, Paul La Farge, and Victor LaValle
LONGLIST:
The UnAmericans
Molly Antopol
(W. W. Norton & Company)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Ruby
Cynthia Bond
(Hogarth)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Black Moon
Kenneth Calhoun
(Hogarth)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Redeployment
Phil Klay
(Penguin Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Ride Around Shining
Chris Leslie-Hynan
(Harper)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Dog
Jack Livings
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Wives of Los Alamos
TaraShea Nesbit
(Bloomsbury)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Heaven of Animals
David James Poissant
(Simon & Schuster)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Love Me Back
Merritt Tierce
(Doubleday)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Time of the Locust
Morowa Yejidé
(Atria Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): For a book of essays published in 2014 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.
JUDGES: Diane Johnson, Dahlia Lithwick, Vijay Seshadri, and Mark Slouka
LONGLIST:
Moral Imagination
David Bromwich
(Princeton University Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Theater of Cruelty
Ian Buruma
(New York Review Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Loitering
Charles D’Ambrosio
(Tin House Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Surrendering Oz
Bonnie Friedman
(Etruscan Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Hard Way on Purpose
David Giffels
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Where Have You Been?
Michael Hofmann
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Empathy Exams
Leslie Jamison
(Graywolf Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Sidewalks, by Valeria Luiselli
Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
(Coffee House Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Limber
Angela Pelster
(Sarabande Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
You Feel So Mortal
Peggy Shinner
(University of Chicago Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences published in 2014.
JUDGES: Sue Halpern, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Carl Zimmer
LONGLIST:
War of the Whales
Joshua Horwitz
(Simon & Schuster)
Amazon | Indie Bound
How We Got to Now
Steven Johnson
(Riverhead Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons
Sam Kean
(Little, Brown and Company)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Sixth Extinction
Elizabeth Kolbert
(Henry Holt and Co.)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Small
Catherine Musemeche MD
(Dartmouth College Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Age of Radiance
Craig Nelson
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Proof
Adam Rogers
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Copernicus Complex
Caleb Scharf
(Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Arrival of the Fittest
Andreas Wagner
(Current)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in 2013 or 2014.
JUDGES: Andrew Blechman, Paul Elie, Azadeh Moaveni, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, and Paul Reyes
LONGLIST:
Our Declaration
Danielle Allen
(Liveright)
Amazon | Indie Bound
All the Truth Is Out
Matt Bai
(Alfred A. Knopf)
Amazon | Indie Bound
League of Denial
Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru
(Crown Archetype)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Five Days at Memorial
Sheri Fink
(Crown)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Big Truck That Went By
Jonathan M. Katz
(Palgrave Macmillan)
Amazon | Indie Bound
This Changes Everything
Naomi Klein
(Simon & Schuster)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Bill of the Century
Clay Risen
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Impulse Society
Paul Roberts
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Amazon | Indie Bound
A Chance to Win
Jonathan Schuppe
(Henry Holt and Co.)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Powers of Two
Joshua Wolf Shenk
(Eamon Dolan Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2014.
JUDGES: R. Erica Doyle, W. Ralph Eubanks, and Chinelo Okparanta
LONGLIST:
An Unnecessary Woman
Rabih Alameddine
(Grove Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Charles M. Blow
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Team Seven
Marcus Burke
(Doubleday)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Streaming
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
(Coffee House Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Every Day Is for the Thief
Teju Cole
(Random House)
Amazon | Indie Bound
An Untamed State
Roxane Gay
(Black Cat)
Amazon | Indie Bound
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James
(Riverhead Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine
(Graywolf Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Fateful Apple
Venus Thrash
(Urban Poets and Lyricists)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The City Son
Samrat Upadhyay
(Soho Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Kinder Than Solitude
Yiyun Li
(Random House)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2014.
JUDGES: Emily Bernard, Nicholas Fox Weber, and Jon Meacham
LONGLIST:
Updike
Adam Begley
(Harper)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Isabella
Kirstin Downey
(Nan A. Talese)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Rebel Yell
S. C. Gwynne
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace
Jeff Hobbs
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
John Quincy Adams
Fred Kaplan
(Harper)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Strange Glory
Charles Marsh
(Alfred A. Knopf)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Becoming Richard Pryor
Scott Saul
(Harper)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Queen’s Bed
Anna Whitelock
(Sarah Crichton Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Victoria
A. N. Wilson
(Penguin Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Piero’s Light
Larry Witham
(Pegasus Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2014.
JUDGES: Rich Cohen, George Dohrmann, and Jonathan Mahler
LONGLIST:
Boy on Ice
John Branch
(W. W. Norton & Company)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Why Football Matters
Mark Edmundson
(Penguin Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Black Noon
Art Garner
(Thomas Dunne Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
All Fishermen are Liars
John Gierach
(Simon & Schuster)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Nicholas Griffin
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Bird Dream
Matt Higgins
(Penguin Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Thrown
Kerry Howley
(Sarabande Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Deep
James Nestor
(Eamon Dolan Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Life Is a Wheel
Bruce Weber
(Scribner)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000): For a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2014.
JUDGE: Ana Božičević
LONGLIST:
Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream by Kim Hyesoon
Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi
(Action Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Love Poems by Bertolt Brecht
Translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
(Liveright)
Amazon | Indie Bound
I Am the Beggar of the World
Translated from the Pashto by Eliza Griswold
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Juana Inés de la Cruz
Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman
(W. W. Norton & Company)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Where Are the Trees Going? by Venus Khoury-Ghata
Translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker
(Curbstone)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Breathturn into Timestead by Paul Celan
Translated from the German by Pierre Joris
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Guantanamo by Frank Smith
Translated from the French by Vanessa Place
(Les Figues Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Skin by Tone Škrjanec
Translated from the Slovenian by Matthew Rohrer and Ana Pepelnik
(Tavern Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Diana’s Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik
Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert
(Ugly Duckling Presse)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Autoepitaph: Selected Poems by Reinaldo Arenas
Translated from the Spanish by Kelly Washbourne
(University Press of Florida)
Amazon | Indie Bound
PEN Translation Prize ($3,000): For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2014.
JUDGES: Heather Cleary, Lucas Klein, Tess Lewis, and Allison Markin Powell
LONGLIST:
Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz
Translated from the Polish by Danuta Borchardt
(Yale/Margellos)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
Translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush
(New York Review Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Symmetry Teacher by Andrei Bitov
Translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Master of Confessions by Thierry Cruvellier
Translated from the French by Alex Gilly
(Ecco)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura
Translated from the Spanish by Anna Kushner
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Amazon | Indie Bound
I Ching
Translated from the Chinese by John Minford
(Viking Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Baboon by Naja Marie Aidt
Translated from the Danish by Denise Newman
(Two Lines Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa
Translated from the Spanish by Samantha Schnee
(Deep Vellum Publishing)
Amazon | Indie Bound
Self-Portrait in Green by Marie NDiaye
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
(Two Lines Press)
Amazon | Indie Bound
The Woman Who Borrowed Memories by Tove Jansson
Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella
(New York Review Books)
Amazon | Indie Bound
2015 CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
(The following PEN Awards do not have longlists. The winners will be announced on May 13 along with all of the winners for the book awards.)
PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize ($10,000): For a promising young writer under the age of 35 for an unpublished work of nonfiction that addresses a global and/or multicultural issue.
JUDGES: John Freeman, Roxane Gay, and Cristina Henríquez
PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards ($7,500 and $2,500): Three awards which honor a Master American Dramatist, American Playwright in Mid-Career, and Emerging American Playwright.
JUDGES: Kathleen Chalfant, Ellen McLaughlin, and Adam Rapp
PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry ($5,000): For an emerging American poet showing promise of further literary achievement.
JUDGES: Marie Howe, Mary Szybist, and Craig Morgan Teicher
PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship ($5,000): For an author of children’s or young-adult fiction to complete a book-length work-in-progress.
JUDGES: Viola Canales, Selene Castrovilla, and Elizabeth Levy
PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): For a writer whose body of work represents an exceptional contribution to the field.
JUDGES: Mike Barnicle, Franklin Foer, and Selena Roberts
PEN/Nora Magid Award for Editing ($2,500): For a magazine editor whose high literary taste has, throughout his or her career, contributed significantly to the excellence of the publication he or she edits.
JUDGES: Christopher Castellani, Carmela Ciuraru, and Bill Clegg
PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation: For a translator whose career has demonstrated a commitment to excellence through the body of his or her work.
JUDGES: Selected by the PEN Translation Committee
PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($2,000-$4,000): To support the translation of book-length works into English.
JUDGES: Esther Allen, Mitzi Angel, Peter Blackstock, Howard Goldblatt, Sara Khalili, Michael F. Moore*, Declan Spring, and Alex Zucker (*Voting Chair of the PEN/Heim Advisory Board)