Each year, the annual PEN America Literary Awards bestow $350,000 to a variety of books across genres. They’ve announced this year’s finalists. Categories include:
- PEN / Jean Stein Book Award – book-length work of any genre ($75K)
- PEN Open Book Award – book-length work of any genre by an author of color ($10K)
- PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection – eponymous ($25K)
- PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel – also eponymous ($10K)
- PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection – ($10K)
- PEN Award for Poetry in Translation – for poetry from another language into English ($3K)
- PEN Translation Prize – for book-length translation from any language into English
- PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay – for a collection of essays ($15K)
- PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award – literary excellence on scientific subject ($10K)
- PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography – ($5K)
- PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction – ($10K)
A House Is a Body: Stories by Shruti Swamy, published by Chapel Hill-based Algonquin Books, is a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection.
Vievee Francis will serve as a judge for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Vievee taught the session “Ars Poetica: Developing a Personal Vision” at the NCWN 2016 Spring Conference.
For the full lists of finalists in each category, click here.
Winners will be celebrated at the virtual Literary Awards Ceremony on April 8, 2021.