PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
PEN/Faulkner, 45 Books
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the author of the best American work of fiction that year. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to Washington, D.C. to read from their works at the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is an outgrowth of William Faulkner's generosity in donating his 1949 Nobel Prize winnings, "to establish a fund to support and encourage new fiction writers." Mary Lee Settle was also one of the founders after controversy at the 1979 National Book Award.[1] It is affiliated with the writers' organization International PEN.
The award was first given in 1980.
This list is a yearly book award, and was added to this site over 12 years ago.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8852 | How German Is It | Walter Abish | 1980 | American | English | |
| 6240 | The Chaneysville Incident | David Bradley | 1981 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Seaview | Toby Olson | 1983 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Sent for You Yesterday | John Edgar Wideman | 1983 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Barracks Thief | Tobias Wolff | 1984 | American | English | |
| 2306 | The Old Forest | Peter Taylor | 1985 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Soldiers in Hiding | Richard Wiley | 1986 | American | English | |
| 1912 | World's End | T. C. Boyle | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Dusk | James Salter | 1988 | American | English | |
| 9072 | Billy Bathgate | E. L. Doctorow | 1989 | American | English | |
| 11435 | Philadelphia fire | John Edgar Wideman | 1990 | American | English | |
| 3199 | Mao II | Don DeLillo | 1991 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Postcards | Annie Proulx | 1992 | American | English | |
| 2226 | Operation Shylock | Philip Roth | 1993 | American | English | |
| 2074 | Snow Falling on Cedars | David Guterson | 1994 | American | English | |
| 1484 | Independence Day | Richard Ford | 1995 | American | English | |
| 14232 | Women in Their Beds | Gina Berriault | 1996 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Bear Comes Home | Rafi Zabor | 1997 | American | English | |
| 1610 | The Hours | Michael Cunningham | 1998 | American | English | |
| 2207 | Waiting | Ha Jin | 1999 | Chinese | English | |
| 420 | The Human Stain | Philip Roth | 2000 | American | English | |
| 947 | Bel Canto | Ann Patchett | 2001 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Caprices | Sabina Murray | 2002 | American | English | |
| 14492 | The Early Stories | John Updike | 2003 | American | English | |
| 10450 | War Trash | Ha Jin | 2004 | Chinese | English | |
| 14984 | The March | E. L. Doctorow | 2005 | American | English | |
| 11628 | Everyman | Philip Roth | 2006 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Great Man | Kate Christensen | 2007 | American | English | |
| 3536 | Netherland | Joseph O'Neill | 2008 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | War Dances | Sherman Alexie | 2009 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg | Deborah Eisenberg | 2010 | American | English | |
| 2165 | The Buddha in the Attic | Julie Otsuka | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club | Benjamin Alire Sáenz | 2012 | American | English | |
| 6836 | We are All Completely Beside Ourselves | Karen Joy Fowler | 2013 | American | English | |
| 6663 | Preparation for the Next Life | Atticus Lish | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Delicious Foods | James Hannaham | 2015 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Behold the Dreamers | Imbolo Mbue | 2016 | Cameroonian | English | |
| 9016 | Improvement | Joan Silber | 2017 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Call Me Zebra | Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi | 2018 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Sea Monsters | Chloe Aridjis | 2019 | British | English | |
| 14984 | The Secret Lives Of Church Ladies | Deesha Philyaw | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Wrong End Of The Telescope | Rabih Alameddine | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Book Of Goose | Yiyun Li | 2022 | Unknown | English | |
| 14232 | What Happened To Ruthy Ramirez | Claire Jimenez | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 8601 | Small Rain | Garth Greenwell | 2024 | Unknown | English |