The PEN/Faulkner Award

Named for William Faulkner, who used his Nobel Prize funds to create an award for young writers, and affiliated with PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists), the international writers' organization, the PEN/Faulkner Award was founded by writers in 1980 to honor their peers, and is now the largest juried award for fiction in the United States. The award judges, who are themselves writers of fiction, each read more than 250 novels and short story collections published during the calendar year before selecting five outstanding books. The book designated the winner earns $15,000 for its author; each of the others receives $5,000. All five authors read from their works and are honored at an award ceremony and celebration held at the Folger Library in May.

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2002

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

2001

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

2000

Waiting by Ha Jin

1999

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

1998

The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor

1997

Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault

1996

Independence Day by Richard Ford

1995

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

1994

Operation Shylock by Philip Roth

1993

Postcards by E. Annie Proulx

1992

Mao II by Don DeLillo

1991

Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman

1990

Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow

1989

Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter

1988

World's End by T.C. Boyle

1987

Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley

1986

The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor