2014 PEN Literary Award Winners Make Great Recommendations

Judges’ citations provide useful guide for bookseller recommendations

PEN American Center has announced the winners of its 2014 PEN Literary Awards, which encompass a range of genres from fiction, poetry, biography, and children’s literature to science writing, translation, and drama.

This year, for the first time, the announcement of the winners was preceded by the announcement of a longlist of nominees and then a shortlist. “The new process holds many more books aloft throughout the summer months, and the citations, as always, are superb — both a great pleasure to read and a useful guide for readers seeking excellence in all the categories of writing honored,” said Alice Quinn, chair of PEN’s Literary Awards.

The 2014 Pen Literary Award winners, announced on Wednesday, July 30, are:

PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2013. 

• domina Un/blued, Ruth Ellen Kocher (Tupelo Press)
• Cowboys and East Indians, Nina McConigley (FiveChapters Books)

PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2013. 

• Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore, Linda Leavell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

PEN/Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing ($5,000): To a writer for an exceptional story illustrated in a picture book published in 2013. 

• The King of Little Things, Bil Lepp (Peachtree Publishers)

PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry ($5,000): To a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. 

• Frank Bidart

PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship ($5,000): To an author of children’s or young adult fiction, who has published at least two books, to complete a book-length work-in-progress. 

• The Taste of Elephant Tears, Linda Oatman High

PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2013.

• League of Denial, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru (Crown Archetype)

PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): To a writer whose body of work represents an exceptional contribution to the field.

• Dave Anderson

PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000): For a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2013.

• Diaries of Exile, Yannis Ritsos; Karen Emmerich and Edmund Keeley (Trans.) (Archipelago)

PEN Translation Prize ($3,000): For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2013.

• Autobiography of a Corpse, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky; Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov (Trans.) (New York Review Books)

PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): For a book of essays published in 2013 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem the essay form imparts to literature.

• Critical Mass, James Wolcott (Doubleday)

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 2013.

• High Price, Dr. Carl Hart (Harper)

PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards ($7,500 and $2,500): Three awards, including the inaugural award for an emerging American playwright.

• Master American Dramatist: David Rabe
• American Playwright in Mid-Career ($7,500): Donald Margulies
• Emerging American Playwright ($2,500): Laura Marks

PEN/Edward and Lily Tuck Award for Paraguayan Literature ($3,000): To a living author of a major work of Paraguayan literature not yet translated into English.

• En Tacumbú (El Lector), Raúl Silva Alonso

The winner of the $25,000 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, founded by Barbara Kingsolver, was announced in June. Ron Childress is the recipient of the biannual award for his unpublished novel And West Is West. The award, presented to an emerging voice whose work addresses issues of social justice, includes a publishing contract with Algonquin Books.

The recipient of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($2,000-$4,000), to support the translation of book-length works into English, will be announced in August.

For the first time this year, the winner for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000) will be announced live at the PEN awards ceremony in September. Finalists for the award include Anthony Marra for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Hogarth), which was honored earlier this year by ABA member booksellers with the 2014 Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Debut of the Year; Saïd Sayrafiezadeh for Brief Encounters with the Enemy (The Dial Press); Ian Stansel for Everybody’s Irish (FiveChapters Books); Shawn Vestal for Godforsaken Idaho (Little A/New Harvest); and Hanya Yanagihara for The People in the Trees (Doubleday).

The PEN Literary Awards Ceremony will be held on Monday, September 29, 2014, at The New School’s Auditorium in New York City.

To help promote the winning titles, booksellers can download the complete list of judges’ citations here.

PEN will be accepting submissions for its 2015 Awards from September 1 through October 31. For a list of all 2015 PEN Awards and information about submission guidelines, visit pen.org/awards.