The Plimpton Prize is an annual award of $10,000 given by The Paris Review to a previously unpublished or emerging author who has written a work of fiction that was recently published in its publication. [1]
The award was named in honor of longtime editor of The Paris Review, George Plimpton, who died in 2003. The Plimpton Prize is funded by Sarah Plimpton, his widow, and Terry McDonell, president of The Paris Review Board of Directors.
George Ames Plimpton was an American writer. He is known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was known for "participatory journalism," including accounts of his active involvement in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur.
Alice Ann Munro was a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her work is said to have revolutionized the architecture of the short story, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time, and with integrated short fiction cycles.
The Paris Review is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Adrienne Rich, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Genet, and Robert Bly.
Benjamin S. Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among many other honors. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.
Paul Murray is an Irish novelist, the author of the novels An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, The Mark and the Void, and The Bee Sting.
Ernest Christy Cline is an American science fiction novelist, slam poet and screenwriter. He wrote the novels Ready Player One, Armada and Ready Player Two, and co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg.
The War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is a fictionalized account of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.
The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is an American literary award presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for debut publications. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year. It was established in 1979 in memory of author Sue Kaufman.
Jonathan Dee is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. His fifth novel, The Privileges, was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Antonio Francesco Weiss is a policymaker, financier, and former publisher. He is currently a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Vanessa Davis is an American illustrator, humorist, and cartoonist of alternative comic books.
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.
Emma Cline is an American writer and novelist from California. She published her first novel, The Girls, in 2016, to positive reviews. The book was shortlisted for the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second novel, The Guest, was published in 2023. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2017, Cline was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists, and Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". She is a recipient of the Plimpton Prize.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.
Brigid Hughes is a New York City-based literary editor. Hughes is best known for succeeding George Plimpton as the editor of the literary magazine The Paris Review after his death in 2003 and for founding the literary magazine A Public Space in 2006.
Emily Nemens is an American writer, editor and illustrator. From April 2018 to March 2021 she served as the editor of The Paris Review.
Isabella Mariam S. Hammad is a British-Palestinian author. In 2023, she was included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Amie Barrodale is an American writer and fiction editor of Vice. She is the author of the short story collection You Are Having a Good Time.
Chetna Maroo is a British Indian author. Her debut novel, Western Lane, was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize.
Jonathan Escoffery is an American writer. His debut novel, If I Survive You, was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction and shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, among other honors. The novel was well received by critics with reviews applauding Escoffery's humor, narrative style and exploration of identity in the immigrant experience.