The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation/Society. It is administered by PEN America. Mary Welsh Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.
Jeffry P. Freundlich, primarily known by his pen name Jeff Lindsay, is an American playwright and crime novelist. He is best known for his novels about the fictional sociopathic police forensic analyst and serial killer-killing vigilante Dexter Morgan. The first book of the series was later developed into the Showtime television series of the same name with actor Michael C. Hall playing the character.
Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. Her short story collection Wednesday's Child was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.
NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name of Elizabeth Zandile Tshele, a Zimbabwean author. In 2012, the National Book Foundation named her a "5 under 35" honoree. She was named one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2014. Her debut novel, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize, and her second novel, Glory, was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, making her "the first Black African woman to appear on the Booker list twice".
Matthew Quick is an American writer of adult and young adult fiction. His 2008 debut novel, The Silver Linings Playbook, became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted as a 2012 movie of the same name starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh is an American author and novelist. Her debut novel, Eileen (2015), won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a fiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moshfegh's subsequent novels include My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, and Lapvona.
Jennifer duBois is an American novelist. duBois is a recipient of a Whiting Award and has been named a "5 Under 35" honoree by the National Book Foundation.
Mitchell S. Jackson is an American writer. He is the author of the 2013 novel The Residue Years, as well as Oversoul (2012), an ebook collection of essays and short stories. Jackson is a Whiting Award recipient and a former winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. In 2021, while an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Chicago, he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for his profile of Ahmaud Arbery for Runner's World. As of 2021, Jackson is the John O. Whiteman Dean's Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University.
Alice May Oseman is an English author and illustrator of young adult fiction. She secured her first publishing deal at 17 and published her first novel Solitaire in 2014.
Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian American novelist. Her work, most notably her 2016 debut novel Homegoing and her 2020 novel Transcendent Kingdom, features themes of lineage, generational trauma, and Black and African identities. At the age of 26, Gyasi won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" honors for 2016 and the 2017 American Book Award. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020. As of 2019, Gyasi lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Becky Chambers is an American science fiction writer. She is the author of the Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series as well as novellas including To Be Taught, if Fortunate (2019) and the Monk & Robot series, which begins with the Hugo Award-winning A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021). She is known for her innovative world-building and character-driven stories, and is a pioneer of the hopepunk genre.
Tommy Orange is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, There There (2018), was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award.
Nicholas Walker is an American author and United States Army veteran who served time in prison for bank robbery. His semi-autobiographical debut novel, Cherry, was published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 14, 2018.
Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian fiction writer and video artist, best known for their novels Freshwater, Pet, and their New York Times bestselling novel The Death of Vivek Oji. Emezi is a generalist who writes speculative fiction, romance, memoir, and poetry for both young adults and adults with mostly LGBT themes. Their work has earned them several awards and nominations including the Otherwise Award and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2021, Time featured them as a Next Generation Leader.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is the debut novel by Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, published by Penguin Press on June 4, 2019. An epistolary novel, it is written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother. It was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction.
C Pam Zhang is an American writer. Her debut novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold, was released by Riverhead Books in 2020 and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction and longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. The same year, Zhang was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Honoree. Her second novel, Land of Milk and Honey, was listed in The New York Times 100 notable books for 2023.
The Vagrants is the first novel by Yiyun Li. It was published in 2009, following her award-winning 2005 short story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.
Jamil Jan Kochai is an Afghan-American writer who was born in Peshawar, Pakistan and resides in Sacramento, California. He is a O. Henry Award winner with two published books of fiction.
Regina Porter is an American novelist and playwright. She is the author of the novel The Travelers, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, was longlisted for the Orwell Prize for political fiction, and was named one of the Best Books of 2019 by Esquire.
