PEN America Literary Awards


PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD 2022

Winner 2022

The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernández

Shortlist

  • The President and The Frog by Carolina De Robertis 
  • The Trees: A Novel by Percival Everett
  • Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
  • Harrow by Joy Williams

PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD

Winner 2022

Curb by Divya Victor

Shortlist

  • Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall 
  • Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir by  Rajiv Mohabir
  • Names for Light: A Family History by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint
  • White Magic by Elissa Washuta

PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION

Winner 2022

Skinship: Stories by Yoon Choi

Shortlist

  • Eat the Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza 
  • Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
  • Objects of Desire: Stories by Clare Sestanovich
  • Give My Love to the Savages: Stories by Chris Stuck

PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL

Winner

Detransition Baby: A Novel by Torrey Peters

Shortlist

Burnt Sugar by  Avni Doshi

Dear Miss Metropolitan: A Novel by Carolyn Ferrell 

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel by  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 

Detransition, Baby: A Novel by Torrey Peters 

PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY

Winner

Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South by Margaret Renkl

Shortlist

PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE

Winner

Migratory Birds by Mariana Oliver Translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches

Shortlist

  • FEM by Magda Cârneci Translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter
  • New Year by Juli Zeh Translated from the German by Alta L. Price
  • The Last One: A Novel by Fatima Daas Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud
  • Kaya Days: A Novel by Carl de Souza Translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD

Winner

Fox and I: An uncommon friendship by Catherine Raven

Shortlist

  • The Memory Thief: And the Secrets Behind What We Remember — A Medical Mystery by Lauren Aguirre
  •  The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 
  • Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World by Lisa Wells
  • Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive by Carl Zimmer

 PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY

Winner

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner

PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION

Winner

All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake by Tiya Miles

Shortlist

  • The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth 
  • All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner
  • Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World by Philip Hoare
  • The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky by Andrew D. Kaufman
  • Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit