The prestigious fiction prize is awarded by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, a non-profit organization whose aim it is to bring readers and national and international writers together.
About the PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction
The directors of the PEN Faulkner Foundation (PFF) pick three judges, usually acclaimed fiction writers, who select five winning entries from over 300 submissions, making it the largest peer-juried fiction award in the country.
Each of the award winners receives prize money, funded entirely through grants and donations; $15,000 for the winner, seen as a “first among equals,” and $5,000 for each of the four finalists.
The award was founded in 1980 and is named after William Faulkner, who donated his Nobel Prize funds toward an award for young writers, and PEN, the international writers’ organization.
Previous PEN Faulkner Fiction Award Winners
Together with a winner, four finalists are honored each year who also read from their works at the award ceremony in May at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Here’s a short cross-section of winners through the 29 years of the prize’s inception:
- Joseph O’Neill, Netherland (Pantheon Books, 2009)
- Philip Roth, The Human Stain (Houghton Mifflin, 2001)
- Michael Cunningham, The Hours (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999)
- James Salter, Dusk (North Point Press, 1989)
- Walter Abish, How German Is It? (New Directions, 1981)
Here’s a list of all winners and finalists from 1996-2008 and 1981-1995.
Faulkner Award Submission Guidelines
Book publishing entities like publishers, literary agents and authors may submit books published in 2009 by living American writers. Self-published books or books by writers who are not American citizens will not be accepted. There are no submission fees or application forms but four copies of each submitted title must be mailed by October 31, 2009 to the following address:
PEN/Faulkner Foundation
ATTN: Jessica Neely
201 East Capitol St., SE
Washington, DC 20003
The judges usually announce the winner and the four finalists in the spring. An award ceremony is held at the Folger Shakespeare Library, PEN/Faulkner’s home since 1983, in early May.
The PEN/Faulkner's Writers in Schools Program
True to its motto “bringing writers and readers together,” PFF has brought international and local authors into Washington public high schools as part of the Writers in Schools program since 1989. The authors work closely together with the teachers so that the students can familiarize themselves with an author’s work in advance and therefore benefit most from his or her visit.
Those who missed the last PEN Faulkner award ceremony or would like to stay in touch with contemporary fiction writing on a regular basis may want to join the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Reading Series, a monthly reading and book-signing event where national and international fiction writers read from their works.
Readers may also be interested in the Literature Nobel Prize, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction or the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
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