PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens.[1] The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. Finalists read from their works at the presentation ceremony in the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country."[1] The award was first given in 1981.[2]
| PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Fiction | 
| Sponsored by | PEN/Faulkner Foundation | 
| Country | United States | 
| Website | penfaulkner | 
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is an outgrowth of William Faulkner's use of his 1949 Nobel Prize winnings to create the William Faulkner Foundation; among the charitable goals of the foundation was "to establish a fund to support and encourage new fiction writers." The foundation's first award for a "notable first novel," called the William Faulkner Foundation Award, was granted to John Knowles's A Separate Peace in 1961. The foundation was dissolved after 1970. Beans.
Mary Lee Settle was one of the founders of the PEN/Faulkner award after controversy at the 1979 National Book Award, when PEN voted a boycott on the ground that they were too commercial.[2][3] It is affiliated with the writers' organization International PEN.
The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by PEN International affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world.
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
    
- 1981 – Walter Abish, How German Is It[4]
- Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus
 - Walker Percy, The Second Coming
 - Gilbert Sorrentino, Aberration of Starlight
 - John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
 
 - 1982 – David Bradley, The Chaneysville Incident
- Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories
 - Richard Bausch, Take Me Back
 - Mark Helprin, Ellis Island and Other Stories
 - Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
 - Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise
 
 - 1983 – Toby Olson, Seaview
- Maureen Howard, Grace Abounding
 - Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh and Other Stories
 - George Steiner, The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.
 - Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
 - William S. Wilson, Birthplace
 
 - 1984 – John Edgar Wideman, Sent for You Yesterday
- Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
 - William Kennedy, Ironweed
 - Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River
 - Bernard Malamud, The Stories
 - Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy
 
 - 1985 – Tobias Wolff, The Barracks Thief
- Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra
 - Donald Hays, The Dixie Association
 - David Leavitt, Family Dancing
 - James Purdy, On Glory's Course
 
 - 1986 – Peter Taylor, The Old Forest and Other Stories
- William Gaddis, Carpenter's Gothic
 - Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
 - Hugh Nissenson, The Tree of Life
 - Helen Norris, The Christmas Wife: Stories
 - Grace Paley, Later the Same Day
 
 - 1987 – Richard Wiley, Soldiers in Hiding
- Richard Ford, The Sportswriter
 - Charles R. Johnson, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
 - Janet Kauffman, Collaborators
 - Maureen Howard, Expensive Habits
 
 - 1988 – T. Coraghessan Boyle, World's End
- Richard Bausch, Spirits, And Other Stories
 - Alice McDermott, That Night
 - Cynthia Ozick, The Messiah of Stockholm
 - Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina
 
 - 1989 – James Salter, Dusk and Other Stories
- Mary McGarry Morris, Vanished
 - Thomas Savage, The Corner of Rife and Pacific
 - Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories
 
 - 1990 – E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate
- Russell Banks, Affliction
 - Molly Gloss, The Jump-Off Creek
 - Josephine Jacobsen, On the Island: New and Selected Stories
 - Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Leaving Brooklyn
 
 - 1991 – John Edgar Wideman, Philadelphia Fire
- Paul Auster, The Music of Chance
 - Joanne Meschery, A Gentleman's Guide to the Frontier
 - Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum
 - Joanna Scott, Arrogance
 
 - 1992 – Don DeLillo, Mao II
- Stephen Dixon, Frog
 - Paul Gervais, Extraordinary People
 - Allan Gurganus, White People
 
 - 1993 – E. Annie Proulx, Postcards
- Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
 - Francisco Goldman, The Long Night of White Chickens
 - Maureen Howard, Natural History
 - Sylvia Watanabe, Talking to the Dead
 
 - 1994 – Philip Roth, Operation Shylock
- Stanley Elkin, Van Gogh's Room at Arles
 - Dagoberto Gilb, The Magic of Blood
 - Fae Myenne Ng, Bone
 - Kate Wheeler, Not Where I Started From
 
 - 1995 – David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
- Frederick Busch, The Children in the Woods
 - Ursula Hegi, Stones from the River
 - Joyce Carol Oates, What I Lived For
 - Joanna Scott, Various Antidotes
 
 - 1996 – Richard Ford, Independence Day
- Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising
 - William H. Gass, The Tunnel
 - Claire Messud, When The World Was Steady
 - A.J. Verdelle, The Good Negress
 
 - 1997 – Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds
- Daniel Akst, St. Burl's Obituary
 - Kathleen Cambor, The Book of Mercy
 - Ron Hansen, Atticus
 - Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother
 
 - 1998 – Rafi Zabor, The Bear Comes Home
- Donald Antrim, The Hundred Brothers
 - Rilla Askew, The Mercy Seat
 - Mary Gaitskill, Because They Wanted To
 - Francisco Goldman, The Ordinary Seaman
 
 - 1999 – Michael Cunningham, The Hours
- Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter
 - Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
 - Brian Morton, Starting Out in the Evening
 - Richard Selzer, The Doctor Stories
 
 - 2000 – Ha Jin, Waiting
- Frederick Busch, The Night Inspector
 - Ken Kalfus, Pu-239 And Other Russian Fantasies
 - Elizabeth Strout, Amy And Isabelle
 - Lily Tuck, Siam, or the Woman Who Shot a Man
 
 - 2001 – Philip Roth, The Human Stain
- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
 - Millicent Dillon, Harry Gold
 - Denis Johnson, The Name of the World
 - Mona Simpson, Off Keck Road
 
 - 2002 – Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
- Karen Joy Fowler, Sister Noon
 - Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
 - Claire Messud, The Hunters
 - Manil Suri, The Death of Vishnu
 
 - 2003 – Sabina Murray, The Caprices
- Peter Cameron, The City of Your Final Destination
 - William Kennedy, Roscoe
 - Victor LaValle, The Ecstatic
 - Gilbert Sorrentino, Little Casino
 
 - 2004 – John Updike, The Early Stories: 1953–1975
 - 2005 – Ha Jin, War Trash
- Jerome Charyn, The Green Lantern
 - Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker
 - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
 - Steve Yarbrough, Prisoners of War
 
 - 2006 – E.L. Doctorow, The March
- Karen Fisher, A Sudden Country
 - William Henry Lewis, I Got Somebody in Staunton
 - James Salter, Last Night
 - Bruce Wagner, The Chrysanthemum Palace
 
 - 2007 – Philip Roth, Everyman
- Charles D'Ambrosio, The Dead Fish Museum
 - Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes
 - Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
 - Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hagar's Children
 
 - 2008 – Kate Christensen, The Great Man
- Annie Dillard, The Maytrees
 - David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk
 - T. M. McNally, The Gateway
 - Ron Rash, Chemistry and Other Stories
 
 - 2009 – Joseph O'Neill, Netherland
- Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles
 - Susan Choi, A Person of Interest
 - Richard Price, Lush Life
 - Ron Rash, Serena
 
 - 2010 – Sherman Alexie, War Dances
- Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
 - Lorraine Lopéz, Homicide Survivors Picnic
 - Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs
 - Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor
 
 - 2011 – Deborah Eisenberg, The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
- Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
 - Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
 - Eric Puchner, Model Home
 - Brad Watson, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories
 
 - 2012 – Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic
- Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin
 - Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda
 - Anita Desai, The Artist of Disappearance
 - Steven Millhauser, We Others: New and Selected Stories
 
 - 2013 – Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club
- Amelia Gray, THREATS
 - Laird Hunt, Kind One
 - T. Geronimo Johnson, Hold It 'Til It Hurts
 - Thomas Mallon, Watergate
 
 - 2014 – Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- Daniel Alarcón, At Night We Walk in Circles
 - Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
 - Joan Silber, Fools
 - Valerie Trueblood, Search Party: Stories of Rescue
 
 - 2015 – Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life[5]
- Jeffrey Renard Allen, Song of the Shank
 - Jennifer Clement, Prayers for the Stolen
 - Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
 - Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
 
 - 2016 – James Hannaham, Delicious Foods[6]
- Julie Iromuanya, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor
 - Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer
 - Elizabeth Tallent, Mendocino Fire: Stories
 - Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum: Stories
 
 - 2017 – Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers[7]
- Viet Dinh, After Disasters
 - Louise Erdrich, LaRose
 - Garth Greenwell, What Belongs to You
 - Sunil Yapa, Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
 
 - 2018 – Joan Silber, Improvement
- Hernán Diaz, In the Distance
 - Samantha Hunt, The Dark Dark
 - Achy Obejas, The Tower of the Antilles
 - Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
 
 - 2019 – Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Call Me Zebra
- Blanche McCrary Boyd, Tomb of the Unknown Racist
 - Richard Powers, The Overstory
 - Ivelisse Rodriguez, Love War Stories
 - Willy Vlautin, Don't Skip Out on Me
 
 - 2020 – Chloe Aridjis, Sea Monsters
- Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End
 - Peter Rock, The Night Swimmers
 - Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow
 - Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
 
 - 2021 – Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies[8]
- Matthew Salesses, Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear
 - Rufi Thorpe, The Knockout Queen
 - Robin Wasserman, Mother Daughter Widow Wife
 - Steve Wiegenstein, Scattered Lights
 
 - 2022[9]
- Nawaaz Ahmed, Radiant Fugitives
 - Rabih Alameddine, The Wrong End of the Telescope
 - Carolina de Robertis, The President and the Frog
 - Carolyn Ferrell, Dear Miss Metropolitan
 - Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were
 
 
References
    
- "Award for Fiction". PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
 - Albin Krebs and Robert Thomas (April 18, 1981). "Notes on People; New York Writer Getting PEN/Faulkner Award". The New York Times. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
 - Matt Schudel (September 29, 2005). "Novelist Mary Lee Settle; Founded PEN/Faulkner Award". Washington Post.
 - "Past Winners and Finalists," last modified 2015, http://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/past-award-winners-finalists/ Archived 2013-12-21 at the Wayback Machine
 - Charles, Ron (April 7, 2015). "Atticus Lish wins PEN/Faulkner Award". Washington Post. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
 - Charles, Ron (April 5, 2016). "James Hannaham wins PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction". Washington Post. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
 - Announcing the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award Winner, PEN/Faulkner Foundation, 2017, archived from the original on 31 July 2018, retrieved 4 April 2017
 - "Deesha Philyaw receives PEN/Faulkner award for 'Secret Lives of Church Ladies'". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
 - "PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist, Current | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation". www.penfaulkner.org. Retrieved 2022-03-02.