Shortlists for 2014 PEN Literary Awards Announced

Posted on June 19, 2014

The shortlists for the 2014 PEN Literary Awards have been announced. There are nine categories of shortlists. One of the most lucrative prizes is the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize awards $25,000 to an author whose debut work represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise. This prize is open to a a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2013. The judges this year are Charles Bock, Jonathan Dee, Fiona Maazel, and Karen Shepard.

The Bingham Prize shortlist consists of:

• A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (Hogarth)
• Brief Encounters With the Enemy by Said Sayrafiezadeh (The Dial Press)
• Everybody's Irish by Ian Stansel (FiveChapters Books), Ian Stansel
• Godforsaken Idaho by Shawn Vestal (Little A/New Harvest)
• The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday)

The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay awards $10,000 and is given for a book of essays published in 2013 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature. The judges for this award are Geoff Dyer, Stanley Fish, Ariel Levy, and Cheryl Strayed.

Here is the shortlist for the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award:

• Forty-One False Starts by Janet Malcolm (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company)
• The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit (Viking Adult)
• Critical Mass by James Wolcott (Doubleday)

The winners will be announced on July 30th. On September 29th, the winners will be honored at a ceremony at the New School's Tishman Auditorium.

You can see all the shortlists here.