Announcing the Recipients of the 2011 PEN Literary Awards
PEN American has announced this year’s award winners, and have named Stacy Schiff’s CLEOPATRA winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography!
Aug 18, 2011
We are pleased to announce the winners and runners-up of the 2011 PEN Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. Next year will mark PEN’s 90th anniversary. For more than 50 of those years, PEN’s Literary Awards program has honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature.
This year, PEN will present 17 awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes—including one that has been revived after a five-year hiatus, the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and three awards offered for the first time ever: the PEN Emerging Writers Awards, the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $150,000 in 2011 to some of the most gifted writers, editors, and translators working today.
Award winners and runners-up will be honored at the 2011 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium in New York City. See the full list of winners and runners-up below:
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000): To a fiction writer whose debut work, published in 2010, represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.* Judges: Susan Cheever, Paul Harding, and Yiyun Li. (*This year, the judges have chosen two winners to share the award.)
Winners
Susanna Daniel, Stiltsville (Harper Perennial)
Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Riverhead)
Runner-up
Teddy Wayne, Kapitoil (Harper Perennial)
PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical and biological sciences published in 2010. Award presented for the first time in 2011. Judges for the inaugural award: Rita Charon, Bill McKibben, and Richard Panek.
Winner
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies (Scribner)
Runner-up
David Abram, Becoming Animal (Pantheon)
PEN/W. G. Sebald Award for a Fiction Writer in Mid-Career ($10,000): To an author who has published at least three significant works of literary fiction. Judges: Jill Ciment, Salvatore Scibona, and Gary Shteyngart.
Winner
Aleksandar Hemon
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): A biennial award for a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective published in 2009 or 2010. Judges: Charles R. Morris, Elaine Showalter, and Lee Siegel.
Winner
Robert Perkinson, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (Metropolitan Books, 2010)
Runners-up
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House, 2010)
PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Awards for an American Playwright in Mid-Career and a Master American Dramatist ($7,500): A pair of awards, which honor: a Master American Dramatist and an American Playwright in Mid-Career. Judges: Kenny Leon, Laura Linney, and Thomas Lynch.
American Playwright in Mid-Career
Marcus Gardley
Master American Dramatist
David Henry Hwang
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($5,000): For a book of essays published in 2010 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem of the essay form. Award revived after a five-year hiatus. Judges: André Aciman, Jo Ann Beard, and William H. Gass.
Winner
Mark Slouka, Essays from the Nick of Time: Reflections and Refutations (Graywolf Press)
Runners-up
Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
Alex Ross, Listen to This (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): For a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2010. Judges: Madeleine Blais, Buzz Bissinger, and Phillip Lopate.
Winner
George Dohrmann, Play Their Hearts Out (Ballantine Books)
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. Award presented for the first time in 2011. Judges for the inaugural award: Roy Blount, Jr., Terry McDonell, and David Remnick.
Winner
Roger Angell
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2010. Judges: Brad Gooch, Benjamin Taylor, and Amanda Vaill.
Winner
Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life (Little, Brown and Company)
Runners-up
Wendy Moffat, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Read more
Aug 18, 2011
We are pleased to announce the winners and runners-up of the 2011 PEN Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. Next year will mark PEN’s 90th anniversary. For more than 50 of those years, PEN’s Literary Awards program has honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature.
This year, PEN will present 17 awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes—including one that has been revived after a five-year hiatus, the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and three awards offered for the first time ever: the PEN Emerging Writers Awards, the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $150,000 in 2011 to some of the most gifted writers, editors, and translators working today.
Award winners and runners-up will be honored at the 2011 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium in New York City. See the full list of winners and runners-up below:
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000): To a fiction writer whose debut work, published in 2010, represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.* Judges: Susan Cheever, Paul Harding, and Yiyun Li. (*This year, the judges have chosen two winners to share the award.)
Winners
Susanna Daniel, Stiltsville (Harper Perennial)
Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Riverhead)
Runner-up
Teddy Wayne, Kapitoil (Harper Perennial)
PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical and biological sciences published in 2010. Award presented for the first time in 2011. Judges for the inaugural award: Rita Charon, Bill McKibben, and Richard Panek.
Winner
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies (Scribner)
Runner-up
David Abram, Becoming Animal (Pantheon)
PEN/W. G. Sebald Award for a Fiction Writer in Mid-Career ($10,000): To an author who has published at least three significant works of literary fiction. Judges: Jill Ciment, Salvatore Scibona, and Gary Shteyngart.
Winner
Aleksandar Hemon
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): A biennial award for a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective published in 2009 or 2010. Judges: Charles R. Morris, Elaine Showalter, and Lee Siegel.
Winner
Robert Perkinson, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (Metropolitan Books, 2010)
Runners-up
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House, 2010)
PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Awards for an American Playwright in Mid-Career and a Master American Dramatist ($7,500): A pair of awards, which honor: a Master American Dramatist and an American Playwright in Mid-Career. Judges: Kenny Leon, Laura Linney, and Thomas Lynch.
American Playwright in Mid-Career
Marcus Gardley
Master American Dramatist
David Henry Hwang
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($5,000): For a book of essays published in 2010 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem of the essay form. Award revived after a five-year hiatus. Judges: André Aciman, Jo Ann Beard, and William H. Gass.
Winner
Mark Slouka, Essays from the Nick of Time: Reflections and Refutations (Graywolf Press)
Runners-up
Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
Alex Ross, Listen to This (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): For a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2010. Judges: Madeleine Blais, Buzz Bissinger, and Phillip Lopate.
Winner
George Dohrmann, Play Their Hearts Out (Ballantine Books)
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. Award presented for the first time in 2011. Judges for the inaugural award: Roy Blount, Jr., Terry McDonell, and David Remnick.
Winner
Roger Angell
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2010. Judges: Brad Gooch, Benjamin Taylor, and Amanda Vaill.
Winner
Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life (Little, Brown and Company)
Runners-up
Wendy Moffat, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Read more