The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, formerly known as the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, is a biennial award given by the PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) and Barbara Kingsolver to a U.S. citizen for a previously unpublished work of fiction that address issues of social justice. The prize was established by noted author Barbara Kingsolver, and is funded by her. [1] Winning authors receive a $25,000 award and a publishing contract, from which they receive royalties. [2]
Submissions are judged by a panel of authors whose work shows themes of social change. Authors who have served as judges include: Russell Banks, Martin Espada, Terry Karten, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Lopez, Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, Grace Paley, and Anna Quindlen.
In May 2011, PEN American Center announced it would take over administration of the prize, which will be known as the PEN/Bellwether Prize. [3] The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes. [4]
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Donna Gershten | Kissing the Virgin's Mouth | [6] |
| 2002 | Gayle Brandeis | The Book of Dead Birds | [7] |
| 2004 | Marjorie Kowalski Cole | Correcting the Landscape | [8] |
| 2006 | Hillary Jordan | Mudbound | |
| 2008 | Heidi W. Durrow | The Girl Who Fell from the Sky | |
| 2010 | Naomi Benaron | Running the Rift | |
| 2012 | Susan Nussbaum | Good Kings Bad Kings | [9] [10] [11] |
| 2014 | Ron Childress | And West Is West | [12] [13] [14] [15] |
| 2016 | Lisa Ko | The Leavers | [16] [17] [18] |
| 2019 | Katherine Seligman | At the Edge of the Haight | [19] [1] [20] |
| 2021 | Jamila Minnicks | Moonrise Over New Jessup | [21] [22] |
| 2023 | Fabienne Josaphat | Kingdom of No Tomorrow |
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published during the preceding calendar year.
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history of the United States. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. The Pulitzer Prize program has also recognized some historical work with its Biography prize, from 1917, and its General Nonfiction prize, from 1962.
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author." Award winners received $15,000 USD.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Judges read citations for each of the finalists' works at the presentation ceremony in Washington, D.C.. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country." The award was first given in 1981.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is an international children's literary award established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honour the Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002). The prize is five million SEK, making it the richest award in children's literature and one of the richest literary prizes in the world. The annual cost of 10 million SEK is financed with tax money.
Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
The Governor General's Award for English-language children's writing is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a children's book written in English. It is one of four children's book awards among the Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, one each for writers and illustrators of English- and French-language books. The Governor General's Awards program is administered by the Canada Council.
The PEN Translation Prize is an annual award given by PEN America to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been presented annually by PEN America and the Book of the Month Club since 1963. It was the first award in the United States expressly for literary translators. A 1999 New York Times article called it "the Academy Award of Translation" and that the award is thus usually not given to younger translators.
Rawi Hage is a Lebanese-Canadian journalist, novelist, and photographer based in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada.
The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given biennially to an American poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature.
The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation is given by PEN America to honor a poetry translation published in the preceding year. The award should not be confused with the PEN Translation Prize. The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN in over 145 PEN centers around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes. The award was called one of "the most prominent translation awards."
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.
The PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award honors "excellence in the art of the short story". It is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors. The award was first given in 1988.
The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, established in 1991, is a category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize awarded to authors' debut books of fiction. It is named for the Los Angeles Times' critic Art Seidenbaum who was also an author and editor. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, though they may be written originally in languages other than English.
The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize is an annual award presented by the Center for Fiction, a non-profit organization in New York City, for the best debut novel. From 2006 to 2011, it was called the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize in honor of John Turner Sargent, Sr.. From 2011 to 2014, it was known as the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, named for Center for Fiction board member Nancy Dunnan and her journalist father Ray W. Flaherty.
The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection is awarded by the PEN America "to exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories ... represent distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise." The winner is selected by a panel of PEN Members made up of three writers or editors. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize was originally named the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. The prize awards the debut writer a cash award of US$25,000.
The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay is awarded by the PEN America to an author for a book of original collected essays. The award was founded by PEN Member and author Barbaralee Diamonstein and Carl Spielvogel, former New York Times columnist, "to preserve the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature." The winner receives a cash award of $10,000.
The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley. It was co-founded in 1988 by Stephen Greco, who continues to direct it as of 2022.
How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa, published in 2020 by McClelland & Stewart. The stories in the collection centre principally on the experiences of Laotian Canadian immigrant families, sometimes from the perspective of children observing the world of adults.
T. Geronimo Johnson is an American filmmaker and novelist. His debut novel, Hold It 'Til It Hurts, was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. His sophomore novel, Welcome to Braggsville, won the 2015 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Fiction Writing, and the inaugural Simpson Family Literary Prize in 2017.
