The PEN/Faulkner Award

"Founded by writers in 1980, and named for William Faulkner, who used his Nobel Prize funds to create an award for young writers, and PEN, the international writers’ organization, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation brings together American writers and readers in a wide variety of programs to promote a love of literature."

"The Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation each year choose three noted writers of fiction to select the winner and four finalists for the Awards among the approximately 300 novels and short story collections submitted. The winner, or “first among equals,” receives $15,000; each of the others receives $5,000, making PEN/Faulkner the largest peer-juried award for fiction in the United States."

From the website... http://www.penfaulkner.org

Winners:

2011:The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
2010 War Dances by Sherman Alexie
2009: Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
2008: The Great Man by Kate Christensen
2007: Everyman by Philip Roth
2006 The March by E. L. Doctorow
2005 War Trash by Ha Jin
2004 The Early Stories: 1953-1975 by John Updike
2003 The Caprices by Sabina Murray
2002 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
2001 The Human Stain by Philip Roth
2000 Waiting by Ha Jin

There are also winners for short story collection (PEN/Malamud Award)

edited to update list.

I have never heard of Ha Jin. Can anyone enlighten me?

amanda, Ha Jin is a wonderful writer, and War Trash his best book. He was born in China, even served in the Chinese army for several years, emigrated to America, and is now teaching on the East Coast. He writes in English only, and his novel Waiting won the US National Book Award in 1999.

ditto on the Ha Jin recommendations, although I'm behind a couple of books.

Although I don't strictly read from these lists, I do like to see the nominations. Sometimes, it adds weight to one title or another when I'm deciding what to read next...

Thanks Louis, I will order Waiting

**2007 WINNER**
Everyman by Philip Roth

Waiting is my favorite contemporary Chinese novel.

I was going to say I enjoyed Everyman but enjoyed isn't quite right, it is a slightly uncomfortable read as it relates a man's death (and life) through his physical failings of his body.

I despised Everyman.

The winner of the 2008 Pen-Faulkner is Kate Christensen and The Great Man. Has anyone read it?

The finalists were:

* Annie Dillard, The Maytrees
* David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk
* T.M. McNally, The Gateway: Stories
* Ron Rash, Chemistry and Other Stories

I've read a Ron Rash - his novel had a great sense of place; North Carolina mountains, I believe. And I have the second novel, I think, in the TBR pile.

Sad to say, I never heard of The Great Man. As for Ha Jin, I've only read The Crazed, so I'll have to look for the others.

I missed the winner in post#10..duh! I also have not heard of this book. Here's a review of it:

From The New Yorker
At the center of this snippy comedy of manners is a New York-based painter and philanderer, Oscar Feldman, whose oeuvre consists of boldly rendered female nudes. That Oscar has been dead for a few years barely matters to the constellation of elderly women in his orbit: his long-suffering wife, Abigail, who rarely leaves her Upper West Side apartment; Teddy, his soignée bohemian mistress, moldering in Greenpoint; his sister Maxine, an abstract painter who is equally preoccupied with female flesh, and considered by some a greater talent. When two feckless biographers descend, looking for the inside scoop, Oscar’s big secret, hanging in plain view, becomes a vehicle for both rapprochement and revelation. Christensen addresses topics like gender and race with overly broad strokes, but her picture of three women coping with the indignities and the pleasures of old age is satisfyingly detailed.

Finished The Great Man and not terribly impressed, although I know this flies in the face of many very positive reviews. If you are interested in my rather negative take, the review is here

This year's winner is Joseph O'Neill for Netherland:


Netherland wins PEN/Faulkner award

The finalists:

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles
Susan Choi, A Person of Interest
Richard Price, Lush Life
Ron Rash, Serina

Thanks for posting the list, kidzdoc.

Out of that list I have only read Netherland (excellent read) and Lush Life (a very male book which my hubbie loved and I could not quite enjoy).

Oh good. I have that in my TBR pile.

I enjoyed Netherland, too. I have A Person of Interest, but haven't read it yet, and I don't have any of the others.

Serena is the baddest, meanest, coldest, testosterone driven-est woman to appear in fiction recently. A lot of people won't like her. I kinda did. Even tho' she's gotta an evil streak. Or several of them. The book has some good environmental and descriptive nature writing to go along with Serena being her own bad self.

The finalists for this year's award were announced on Tuesday:

Sherman Alexie for War Dances

Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna

Lorraine M. López for Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories

Lorrie Moore for A Gate at the Stairs

Colson Whitehead for Sag Harbor

"The winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced on March 23; the four finalists will receive $5,000 each."

2010 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

Thanks, Darryl. Somehow I missed the announcement that Netherland won last year; I'm glad to see that, because I loved it. Haven't read anything on this year's list, but some of them sound interesting.

I have A Gate at the Stairs and Sag Harbor. I'll have to ask my friend's wife tomorrow what she thought of A Gate at the Stairs. Moore teaches at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison, and I'm flying to Madison tomorrow afternoon. I hadn't heard of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, but I'll check it out if we go to a bookstore this weekend.

Another reason for me to get to Sag Harbor...now where did I put that?...

War Dances is this year's winner. I take this opportunity to recommend a finalist from 2005, which I am currently reading-- I Got Somebody in Staunton by William Henry Lewis. A collection of short fiction that surely deserves the association with Faulkner, for The Past is as much a character in these stories as the narrator himself.

The five finalists for this year's award were announced last week:

Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad
Deborah Eisenberg, The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
Eric Puchner, Model Home
Brad Watson, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives

The winner of the $15,000 award will be announced on March 15th.

More info: http://www.penfaulkner.org/site/assets/docs/2011_PF_AWARD_FINALISTS.pdf

I've read the Egan and the Gordon, and both made my list of best of 2010. I've also read some stories by Eisenberg and didn't really like them, but I've never heard of either Model Home or Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (great title!).

Well, I'll go for one of Rebecca's favourites, which I have not read - Lord of Misrule. Bad touchstone.

Deborah Eisenberg is the winner of this year's award, for The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg.

More info: http://www.penfaulkner.org/news/news/Deborah_Eisenberg_Wins_2011_PENFaulkner_Awa...

27 Amanda, you do know you can edit touchstones, don't you? Click on the little link that says "others" and you'll get a drop down list with other choices -- usually, but not always, the correct one is there.

Thanks Rebecca. I didn't know that.

2012

Julie Otsuka for The Buddha in the Attic -- Winner

Shortlist:
Russell Banks for Lost Memory of Skin
Don DeLillo for The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories
Anita Desai for The Artist of Disappearance
Steven Millhauser for We Others: New and Selected Stories

I loved Buddha in the Attic. It was a 5 star read for me last year.

The list of finalists for this year's award was announced earlier this week.

Daniel Alarcón, At Night We Walk in Circles
Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Joan Silber, Fools: Stories
Valerie Trueblood, Search Party: Stories of Rescue

The winner will be announced on April 2nd. More info: http://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/

Oh, I really liked Fools! Glad to see Joan Silber nominated--she is awesome!

The only one from this year's list that I've read is At Night We Walk in Circles, and it just didn't work for me. I have to admit that I was often bored reading it. That probably reflects badly on me as a reader much more than it reflects the author's capabilities.

The finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize are:

• Jeffery Renard Allen, “Song of the Shank”
• Jennifer Clement, “Prayers for the Stolen”
• Atticus Lish, “Preparation for the Next Life”
• Jenny Offill, “Dept. of Speculation”
• Emily St. John Mandel, "Station Eleven"

The winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced on April 7

Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish won the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize this year.

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2016
Congratulations to James Hannaham, winner of the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his novel, DELICIOUS FOODS. The 36th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony & Dinner will be held on Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 7:00pm at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2017

Imbolo Mbue, winner of the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her novel Behold the Dreamers (Penguin Random House), and the four finalists:

Viet Dinh for After Disasters

Louise Erdrich for LaRose

Garth Greenwell for What Belongs to You

Sunil Yapa for Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Finalists for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine
The President and the Frog by Carolina de Robertis
Dear Miss Metropolitan by Carolyn Ferrell
How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue