Winners Of PEN America Literary Awards 2022 Ceremony

PEN America is thrilled to announce the 2022 Literary Awards winners. The following book award winners were announced live at the PEN America Literary

ANNOUNCING THE 2022 PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARDS WINNERS

Having concluded the series of writing competitions organized by the prestigious literary organization, PEN America, they released the list of winners of each category of the contest including the runner ups.

PEN America is thrilled to announce the 2022 Literary Awards winners. The following book award winners were announced live at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 28, 2022, at The Town Hall in New York City and hosted by Seth Meyers.

Short Details About PEN America Literary Awards 2022

Since 1963, the PEN America Literary Awards Program has honored outstanding voices in fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, biography, children’s literature, translation, drama, and more. With the help of our generous partners and supporters, this year PEN America conferred over 20 distinct juried awards, grants, and prizes, awarding more than $350,000 to more than 40 writers and translators.

Learn more about the 2022 career achievement award winners and grant winners, which were announced earlier. Our awards are juried by panels of esteemed, award-winning writers, editors, booksellers, and critics. 

Below are the winners and runner ups in each category of PEN America Literary Awards 2022

PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD ($75,000)

To a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact, which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence.

Winner: 

The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease, Daisy Hernández (Tin House Books), Bookshop

Finalists:

 The President and The Frog, Carolina De Robertis (Knopf) 

The Trees: A Novel, Percival Everett (Graywolf Press) 

Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz (Grove Press) 

Harrow, Joy Williams (Knopf)

PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD ($10,000)

To an exceptional book-length work of any literary genre by an author of color.

Winner: 

Curb, Divya Victor (Nightboat Books), Bookshop

Finalists: 

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Rebecca Hall (Simon & Schuster) 

Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir, Rajiv Mohabir (Restless Books) 

Names for Light: A Family History, Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint (Graywolf Press)

White Magic, Elissa Washuta (Tin House Books)

PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION ($25,000)

To an author whose debut collection of short stories represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise for future work.

Winner:

 Skinship: Stories, Yoon Choi (Knopf), Bookshop

Finalists:

 Eat the Mouth That Feeds You, Carribean Fragoza (City Lights Books)

Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz (Grove Press)

Objects of Desire: Stories, Clare Sestanovich (Knopf)

Give My Love to the Savages: Stories, Chris Stuck (Amistad Press)

PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL ($10,000)

To a debut novel of exceptional literary merit by an American author.

Winner:

 Detransition, Baby: A Novel, Torrey Peters (MCD), Bookshop

Finalists: 

Burnt Sugar, Avni Doshi (The Overlook Press)

Dear Miss Metropolitan: A Novel, Carolyn Ferrell (Henry Holt & Company)

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper)

The Five Wounds: A Novel, Kirstin Valdez Quade (W.W. Norton & Company)

 

PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY ($15,000)

For a seasoned writer whose collection of essays is an expansion on their corpus of work and preserves the distinguished art form of the essay. 

Winner

 Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South, Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions), Bookshop

Finalists: 

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

Homo Irrealis: Essays, André Aciman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time, Teju Cole (University of Chicago Press)

These Precious Days: Essays, Ann Patchett (Harper)

PEN/VOELCKER AWARD FOR POETRY COLLECTION ($5,000)

To a poet whose distinguished collection of poetry represents a notable and accomplished literary presence.

Winner: 

frank: sonnets, Diane Seuss (Graywolf Press), Bookshop

Finalists:

 Yellow Rain: Poems, Mai Der Vang (Graywolf Press), 

Sho, Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)

Heard-Hoard, Atsuro Riley (University of Chicago Press)

Mutiny, Phillip B. Williams (Penguin Books)

PEN AWARD FOR POETRY IN TRANSLATION ($3,000)

For a book-length translation of poetry from any language into English.

Winner: 

Everything I Don’t Know, Jerzy Ficowski (World Poetry Books), Translated from the Polish by Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer, Bookshop

Finalists:

 Exhausted on the Cross, Najwan Darwish (New York Review Books), Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

I Name Him Me: Selected Poems of Ma Yan, Ma Yan (Ugly Duckling Presse), Translated from the Chinese by Stephen Nashef

Outgoing Vessel, Ursula Andkjær Olsen (Action Books), Translated from the Danish by Katrine Øgaard Jensen

Ova Completa, Susana Thénon (Ugly Duckling Presse), Translated from Spanish by Rebekah Smith

PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE ($3,000)

For a book-length translation of prose from any language into English.

Winner:

 Migratory Birds, Mariana Oliver (Transit Books), Translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches, Bookshop

Finalists: 

FEM, Magda Cârneci (Deep Vellum), Translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter

New Year, Juli Zeh (World Editions), Translated from the German by Alta L. Price

The Last One: A Novel, Fatima Daas (Other Press), Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud

Kaya Days: A Novel, Carl de Souza (Two Line Press), Translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD ($10,000)

For a work that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience.

Winner: 

An Fox & I: Uncommon Friendship, Catherine Raven (Spiegel & Grau), Bookshop

Finalists: 

The Memory Thief: And the Secrets Behind What We Remember — A Medical Mystery, Lauren Aguirre (Pegasus Books)

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (Bold Type Books)

Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World, Lisa Wells (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive, Carl Zimmer (Dutton Books)

PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY ($5,000)

For a biography of exceptional literary, narrative, and artistic merit, based on scrupulous research.

Winner:

 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler, Rebecca Donner (Little Brown and Company), Bookshop

Finalists: 

The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness, Katie Booth (Simon & Schuster)

Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World, Phillip Hoare (Pegasus Books)

The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, Andrew D. Kaufman (Riverhead Books)

Orwell’s Roses, Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION ($10,000)

For a distinguished book of general nonfiction published, possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective that illuminates important contemporary issues.

Winner: 

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake, Tiya Miles (Random House), Bookshop

Finalists: 

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, Andrea Elliott (Random House)

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Reuben Jonathan Miller (Little Brown and Company)

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, Sarah Schulman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Clint Smith (Little Brown and Company)