PEN Faulkner Award

PEN Faulkner Award is an American literary prize presented annually for works of fiction by writers associated with the United States, recognizing novels and short story collections. Established in 1981, it has honored authors whose works intersect with traditions represented by William Faulkner and engages with institutions such as PEN America‎, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and university presses including Harvard University Press. The award operates within a constellation of American literary culture that includes prizes like the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Booker Prize, the Man Booker International Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

History

The award was created by the Faulkner Foundation during a period shaped by cultural institutions such as the Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and The Atlantic. Early patrons and jurors included figures associated with the Library of Congress, Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of Virginia. Over decades the prize has interacted with movements and moments involving authors connected to the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat Generation, and the postmodern scene that produced writers linked to City Lights Bookstore, Viking Press, Random House, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Knopf. Controversies and shifts in governance involved boards affiliated with the PEN America‎ network, the Faulkner Society, the National Book Critics Circle, the Modern Language Association, and regional institutions such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Eligibility and Criteria

Eligible works traditionally include novels and short story collections published in the United States by authors who reside in the United States or are U.S. citizens, with publishers ranging from small independent presses like Graywolf Press, Coffee House Press, and Milkweed Editions to major houses such as Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and HarperCollins. Criteria emphasize literary quality as adjudicated by panels drawn from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Fellows program, and university creative writing programs at Iowa Writers' Workshop, Columbia University School of the Arts, UNC Chapel Hill, and NYU. Submission procedures have involved partnerships with organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, PEN America‎, and state humanities councils. Judges have come from editorial offices of The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, and literary magazines such as Tin House, Ploughshares, and Granta.

Award Process and Ceremony

The selection process typically involves an open submission period, a longlist, a shortlist, and a final jury decision, with jurors drawn from writers affiliated with the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ceremonies have been held at venues including the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Kennedy Center, and university auditoriums at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Virginia, often featuring readings hosted by figures from PEN America‎, the Faulkner Society, the Center for Fiction, and the National Book Foundation. Presentations and events have involved collaborations with bookstores like City Lights, Powell's Books, Strand Bookstore, Politics and Prose, and independent bookstores supported by the American Booksellers Association. Honors have sometimes coincided with festivals such as the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the Hay Festival, and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Winners and Nominees

Winners and nominees have included authors whose careers intersect with prizes and institutions like the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Booker Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature, MacArthur Fellowship, and Guggenheim Fellowship. Notable past recipients and shortlisted writers have affiliations or overlaps with figures linked to Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike, Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, Donna Tartt, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Kazuo Ishiguro, Yaa Gyasi, Jesmyn Ward, Richard Powers, Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg, Louise Erdrich, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Edna O'Brien, and Michael Chabon. Shortlisted writers have been published by houses such as Knopf, Picador, Faber & Faber, Bloomsbury, and Secker & Warburg and reviewed in outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Independent, and The Times Literary Supplement.

Impact and Criticism

The prize has influenced careers by increasing sales and visibility through reviews in The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, and through endorsements by literary agents at agencies like William Morris Endeavor, Curtis Brown, and ICM Partners. Critics have debated the award’s relationship to prestige systems involving the National Book Critics Circle and literary academies such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, raising questions similar to debates around diversity cited in discussions involving the Harlem Renaissance, multiculturalism, postcolonial studies tied to Edward Said, and canon debates referencing New Critics and poststructuralist theorists associated with institutions like Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley. Others have questioned transparency of selection processes compared with prizes administered by the Booker Prize Foundation, the Nobel Committee, and the Pulitzer Board, prompting reforms that engaged nonprofit governance norms reflected in boards modeled on the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Category:American literary awards