PEN Literary Awards 2023

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110 books

Since 1963, the PEN America Literary Awards have honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature across diverse genres, including fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, and drama. With the help of our partners, PEN America confers over 20 distinct awards, fellowships, grants and prizes each year, awarding nearly $350,000 to writers and translators.

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See the source list and commentary at pen.org

PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

Winner

Dr. No

Percival Everett, 2022

Finalists

Acting Class

Nick Drnaso, 2022

Milkweed Smithereens

Bernadette Mayer, 2022

If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

Noor Naga, 2022

The White Mosque

Sofia Samatar, 2022

Longlist

My Pinup

Hilton Als, 2022

If I Survive You

Jonathan Escoffery, 2022

Very Cold People

Sarah Manguso, 2022

Customs

Solmaz Sharif, 2023

Night of the Living Rez

Morgan Talty, 2022

PEN Open Book Award

Winner

The Black Period

On Personhood, Race, and Origin

Hafizah Augustus Geter, 2022

Finalists

Shutter

Ramona Emerson, 2022

Gorgoneion

Casey Rocheteau, 2022

All the Flowers Kneeling

Paul Tran, 2022

Last Summer on State Street

Toya Wolfe, 2022

Longlist

Golden Ax

Rio Cortez, 2022

The Listening Skin

Glenis Redmond, 2022

The Town of Babylon

Alejandro Varela, 2022

Making Love with the Land

Joshua Whitehead, 2022

Solito

Javier Zamora, 2022

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

Winner

Night of the Living Rez

Morgan Talty, 2022

Finalists

Seeking Fortune Elsewhere

Sindya Bhanoo, 2022

A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times

MERON. HADERO, 2022

The Anchored World

Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore

Jasmine Sawers, 2022

Manywhere

Morgan Thomas, 2022

Longlist

Rainbow Rainbow

Lydia Conklin, 2022

Is This How You Eat a Watermelon?

Zein El-Amine, 2022

If I Survive You

Jonathan Escoffery, 2022

A Calm and Normal Heart: Stories

Chelsea T. Hicks, 2022

What We Fed to the Manticore

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, 2022

PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel

Winner

Calling for a Blanket Dance

Oscar Hokeah, 2022

Finalists

Activities of Daily Living: A Novel

Lisa Hsiao Chen, 2022

Shutter

Ramona Emerson, 2022

Little Rabbit

Alyssa Songsiridej, 2023

Which Side Are You On

Ryan Lee Wong, 2022

Longlist

A Tiny Upward Shove

Melissa Chadburn, 2022

The School for Good Mothers

Jessamine Chan, 2022

Nuclear Family

Joseph Han, 2022

Nightcrawling

Leila Mottley, 2022

How High We Go in the Dark

Sequoia Nagamatsu, 2022

PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Winner

A Left-Handed Woman

Judith Thurman, 2022

Finalists

Translating Myself and Others

Jhumpa Lahiri, 2022

Still No Word from You

Notes in the Margin

Peter Orner, 2022

Happy-Go-Lucky

David Sedaris, 2022

The Green Hour

A Natural History of Home

Alison Townsend, 2021

Longlist

I'll Show Myself Out

Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

Jessi Klein, 2022

A Place in the World

Finding the Meaning of Home

Frances Mayes, 2022

Animal Bodies

On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties

Suzanne Roberts, 2022

Small Acreages

New and Collected Essays

Georgia Green Stamper, 2022

Streaming Now

Postcards from Pandemica

Laurie Stone, 2022

PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection

Winner

To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness

Robin Coste Lewis, 2022

Finalists

Smoking the Bible

Chris Abani, 2022

Pink Waves

Sawako Nakayasu, 2022

Blood Snow

dg nanouk okpik, 2022

Best Barbarian: Poems

Roger Reeves, 2022

Longlist

[To] The Last [Be] Human

Jorie Graham, 2022

Maafa

Harmony Holiday, 2021

The Hurting Kind

Ada Limón, 2022

Cain Named the Animal

Shane McCrae, 2022

Then the War

And Selected Poems, 2007-2020

Carl Phillips, 2022

PEN Award for Poetry in Translation

Winner

The Loose Pearl

Paula Ilabaca Núñez, 2022

Finalists

No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace

Jean D'Amérique, 2022

Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season: Selected Poems

Forough Farrokhzad, 2022

Distant Transit

Maja Haderlap, 2022

Adela Zamudio

Selected Poetry & Prose

Adela Zamudio, 2022

Longlist

The Threshold

Iman Mersal, 2022

Claus and the Scorpion

Lara Dopazo Ruibal, 2022

Dolore minimo

GIovanna Cristina Vivinetto, 2019

Motherfield

Poems and Belarusian Protest Diary

Julia Cimafiejeva, 2022

The Rust of History

Sotero Rivera Avilés, 2022

PEN Translation Prize

Winner

People from Bloomington

Budi Darma, 2022

Finalists

The Tatami Galexy

Tomihiko Morimi, 2015

Call Me Cassandra

Marcial Gala, 2022

Tono the Infallible

Evelio Rosero, 2022

A Line in the World

A Year on the North Sea Coast

Dorthe Nors, 2022

Longlist

All Your Children, Scattered

Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse, 2023

Jawbone

Mónica Ojeda, 2022

Moldy Strawberries

Caio Fernando Abreu, 2022

Ghost Town

Kevin Chen, 2022

Pina

Titaua Peu, 2022

PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

Winner

Heartbreak

A Personal and Scientific Journey

Florence Williams, 2022

Finalists

Vagina Obscura

An Anatomical Voyage

Rachel E Gross, 2023

Sounds Wild and Broken

David George Haskell, 2022

The Big Bang of Numbers

How to Build the Universe Using Only Math

Manil Suri, 2023

An Immense World

How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Longlist

Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist

Frans de Waal, 2022

Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers

Erica Hannickel, 2022

A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain

Sara Manning Peskin, 2022

The Wine-Dark Sea Within

A Turbulent History of Blood

Dr. Dhun Sethna, 2022

Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters

Marlene Zuk, 2022

PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

Winner

Dilla Time

The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

Dan Charnas, 2022

Finalists

Civil Rights Queen

Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, 2022

G-Man

J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Beverly Gage, 2022

Guru to the World

The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda

Ruth Harris, 2022

Mr. B

George Balanchine's 20th Century

Jennifer Homans, 2022

Longlist

An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville

Reza Aslan, 2022

The Adventures of Herbie Cohen

World's Greatest Negotiator

Rich Cohen, 2022

The Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot's Hidden Muse

Lyndall Gordon, 2022

The Pope at War

The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler

David I. Kertzer, 2023

Saxophone Colossus

The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins

Aidan Levy, 2022

PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction

Winner

The Inheritors

An Intimate Portrait of a Brave and Bewildered Nation

Eve Fairbanks, 2023

Finalists

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

Kelly Lytle Hernández, 2022

South to America

A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

Imani Perry, 2022

The War of Nerves

Inside the Cold War Mind

Martin Sixsmith, 2022

Solito

Javier Zamora, 2022

Longlist

The Naked Don't Fear the Water

An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees

Matthieu Aikins, 2022

Tree Thieves

Crime and Survival in North America's Woods

Lyndsie Bourgon, 2022

After the Ivory Tower Falls

How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It

Will Bunch, 2022

The Viral Underclass

The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide

Steven W. Thrasher, 2022

The Great Stewardess Rebellion

How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet

Nell McShane Wulfhart, 2022