The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation/Society. It is administered by PEN America. Mary Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.
The winner is selected by a panel of three distinguished fiction writers and receives a cash prize of US$25,000.[1] Along with the winner, two finalists and two runners-up receive a Ucross Residency Fellowship at the Ucross Foundation, a retreat for artists and writers on a 22,000 acre (89 km²) ranch on the high plains in Ucross, Wyoming. The award ceremony is held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
The award presentation is sponsored in part by the JFK Presidential Library.[2]
The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world.
Winners
- 1976 – Loyd Little for Parthian Shot
- 1977 – Renata Adler for Speedboat
- 1978 – Darcy O'Brien for A Way of Life, Like Any Other
- 1979 – Reuben Bercovitch for Hasen
- 1980 – Alan Saperstein for Mom Kills Kids and Self
- 1981 – Joan Silber for Household Words
- 1982 – Marilynne Robinson for Housekeeping
- 1983 – Bobbie Ann Mason for Shiloh and Other Stories
- 1984 – Joan Chase for During the Reign of the Queen of Persia
- 1985 – Josephine Humphreys for Dreams of Sleep
- 1986 – Alan V. Hewat for Lady's Time
- 1987 – Mary Ward Brown for Tongues of Flame
- 1988 – Lawrence Thornton for Imagining Argentina
- 1989 – Jane Hamilton for The Book of Ruth
- 1990 – Mark Richard for The Ice at the Bottom of the World
- 1991 – Bernard Cooper for Maps to Anywhere
- 1992 – Louis Begley for Wartime Lies
- 1993 – Edward P. Jones for Lost in the City
- 1994 – Dagoberto Gilb for The Magic of Blood
- 1995 – Susan Power for The Grass Dancer
- 1996 – Chang-Rae Lee for Native Speaker
- 1997 – Ha Jin for Ocean of Words
- 1998 – Charlotte Bacon for A Private State
- 1999 – Rosina Lippi for Homestead
- 2000 – Jhumpa Lahiri for Interpreter of Maladies
- 2001 – Akhil Sharma for An Obedient Father
- 2002 – Justin Cronin for Mary and O'Neil
- 2003 – Gabriel Brownstein for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt. 3W
- 2004 – Jennifer Haigh for Mrs. Kimble
- 2005 – Chris Abani for GraceLand
- 2006 – Yiyun Li for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
- 2007 – Ben Fountain for Brief Encounters With Che Guevara
- 2008 – Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End
- 2009 – Michael Dahlie for A Gentleman's Guide to Graceful Living
- 2010 – Brigid Pasulka for A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True[3]
- 2011 – Brando Skyhorse for The Madonnas of Echo Park
- 2012 – Teju Cole for Open City[4]
- 2013 – Kevin Powers for The Yellow Birds
- 2014 – NoViolet Bulawayo for We Need New Names[5][6]
- 2015 – Arna Bontemps Hemenway for Elegy on Kinderklavier[7]
- 2016 – Ottessa Moshfegh for Eileen[8]
- 2017 – Yaa Gyasi for Homegoing
- 2018 – Weike Wang for Chemistry
- 2019 – Tommy Orange for There There[9]
- 2020 – Ruchika Tomar for A Prayer for Travelers[10]
Notes
- ^ "PEN/Hemingway Award". Archived from the original on 2017-05-15. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
- ^ "2012 Hemingway Foundation PEN Award Winner Announced". JFK Presidential Library. March 6, 2012. Retrieved August 27, 2012.
- ^ "Brigid Pasulka wins Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award". Chicago Tribune. March 8, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
- ^ LARRY ROHTER (March 8, 2012). "Hemingway/PEN Award Goes to Teju Cole". New York Times. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
- ^ Allan Kozinn (March 17, 2014). "Writer From Zimbabwe Wins PEN/Hemingway Award for First Novel". New York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
- ^ Yvonne Zipp (March 18, 2014). "NoViolet Bulawayo wins prestigious Hemingway/PEN award". MLive.com. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
- ^ Jan Gardner (March 28, 2015). "A PEN/Hemingway for Hemenway". Boston Globe. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
- ^ Mark Shanahan (March 16, 2016). "Newton's Ottessa Moshfegh wins 2016 PEN/Hemingway Award". Boston Globe. Retrieved June 22, 2016.
- ^ "Breakout Novelist Tommy Orange Wins $25,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for There There". PEN America. 2019-03-19. Retrieved 2019-03-20.
- ^ "Novelist Ruchika Tomar Wins 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award for her Debut Novel 'A Prayer for Travelers'". PEN America. 2020-03-23. Retrieved 2020-03-23.