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PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

American literary award From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PEN/Jean Stein Book Award is awarded by the PEN America to honor a "a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact". The award of $75,000 is one of the richest prizes given by the PEN American Center. It was first awarded in 2017.

The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in more than 145 PEN centers around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes.[1]

Winners and finalists

More information Year, Author ...
Previous winners and finalists[2]
Year Author Title Result Ref.
2017 Hisham Matar The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between Winner [3][4][5]
Teju Cole Known and Strange Things Finalist [6]
Tyehimba Jess Olio
Jane Mayer Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Colson Whitehead The Underground Railroad
2018 Layli Long Soldier Whereas Winner [7][8][9]
Ta-Nehisi Coates We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy Finalist [10]
Hari Kunzru White Tears
Victor LaValle The Changeling
Kevin Young Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
2019 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Friday Black Winner [11][12]
Ada Limón The Carrying: Poems Finalist [13]
José Olivarez Citizen Illegal
Richard Powers The Overstory
Tara Westover Educated: A Memoir
2020 Yiyun Li Where Reasons End Winner [14][15][16]
Anne Boyer The Undying Finalist [17][18]
Ilya Kaminsky Deaf Republic: Poems
Rion Amilcar Scott The World Doesn't Require You
Chris Ware Rusty Brown
2021 Ross Gay Be Holding: A Poem Winner [19][20]
Anthony Cody Borderland Apocrypha Finalist [21]
Akwaeke Emezi The Death of Vivek Oji
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore The Freezer Door
Kawai Strong Washburn Sharks in the Time of Saviors: A Novel
2022 Daisy Hernández The Kissing Bug Winner [22][23]
Joy Williams Harrow Finalist [22][24]
Percival Everett The Trees
Dantiel W. Montiz Milk Blood Heat
Carolina de Robertis The President and the Frog
2023 Percival Everett Dr. No Winner [25]
Nick Drnaso Acting Class Finalist [26]
Bernadette Mayer Milkweed Smithereens
Noor Naga If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English
Sofia Samatar The White Mosque
2024 No award conferred.[a] [28][27]
2025[b] Venita Blackburn Dead in Long Beach, California Finalist [29]
Victoria Chang With My Back to the World: Poems
Timothy Snyder On Freedom
2026 Brandon Hobson The Devil is a Southpaw Finalist [30]
Joy Williams The Pelican Child
Yiyun Li Things in Nature Merely Grow
Cannupa Hanska Luger SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide
Arthur Sze Into the Hush
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Notes

  1. [a]
    Ten books were nominated for the 2024 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, though nine withdrew, protesting the organization's response to the crisis in Gaza.[27][28]
  2. [b]
    No winner was selected in 2025; the finalist list initially had five contenders, though two withdrew, protesting the organization's response to the crisis in Gaza.[29]

References

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