2018 PEN America Literary Awards Longlist Includes Jenny Zhang, Erika L. Sánchez, Nicole Sealey

PEN America announced the semi-finalists for the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards, which include the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, PEN Open Book Award, PEN Translation Prize, PEN/Diamondstein Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography, PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing, and PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Phew. Poet Jenny Zhang is a semi-finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for her fiction debut, Sour Heart; and Poets Jennifer Chang, Sasha Pimentel, Erika L. Sánchez, and Nicole Sealey are semi-finalists for the PEN Open Book Award. "Offered by the country’s only organization that both celebrates literature and defends free expression, the Awards give special weight to emerging authors, writers of color, and international literature in translation," the organization's press release explains. Let's start there: 

The 2018 PEN America Literary Awards longlists include breakout authors Carmen Maria Machado for Her Body and Other Parties (Graywolf Press) and Jenny Zhang for Sour Heart (Lenny); literary icons Edwidge Danticat for The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (Graywolf Press) and Ursula K. Le Guin for No Time to Spare (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); historian and activist Rebecca Solnit for The Mother of All Questions (Haymarket Books); heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson for Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus D’Amato with Larry “Ratso” Sloman (Blue Rider Press); and Hamilton author Ron Chernow for his newest historical biography Grant (Penguin Press), among many others. 

“Over the last year, we have witnessed a reading public thirsting for literature as a fount of inspiration, an escape from the daily headlines, and a wellspring that can allow us to reimagine a world free of today’s fissures,” said PEN America Executive Director Suzanne Nossel. “Through the PEN America Literary Awards we celebrate the role of literature and translation in fostering empathy across social schisms, opening our eyes to what we might overlook, and offering sustenance and solace that help all of us press forward.”

Finalists for the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards will be announced in January, and winners will be revealed at the Literary Awards Ceremony on February 20 at the NYU Skirball Center in New York.

Learn more at PEN America.