PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction has been given every year since 1981 by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, a literary nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. It honors the best fiction published in a calendar year by living U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and novels, novellas and short story collections are all eligible. The judges are fellow fiction writers, an approach the foundation uses to keep the choice free of commercial pressure.

Each year the foundation's board appoints three writers as judges. They read the submitted books, name a longlist of ten, narrow it to five finalists, and then pick a single winner, whom the foundation calls first among equals. The winner receives $15,000 and each of the other four finalists receives $5,000. The winner is usually announced in early April, and all five authors are honored at an annual celebration in Washington.

Novels, novellas and story collections published in the United States during the calendar year by living U.S. citizens or permanent residents; self-published books, reprints and translations by someone other than the author are not eligible.