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PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2021 finalists announced

3 March 2021   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

In the US, the finalists have been announced for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, which recognises the best work of fiction published in the preceding year by an American author.

The finalists are:

  • The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw, West Virginia University Press)
  • Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear (Matthew Salesses, Little A)
  • The Knockout Queen (Rufi Thorpe, Alfred A Knopf)
  • Mother Daughter Widow Wife (Robin Wasserman, Scribner)
  • Scattered Lights (Steve Wiegenstein, Cornerpost).

‘The five finalists for this year’s PEN/Faulkner Award are very different, their dazzling voices restrained, chaotic, tender, and funny in turn,’ the judges said. ‘But all five are radical truth-seekers. In their worlds, we return to the most essential questions about how we live and why: the questions that our present moment in history has prompted, too.’

The winner will receive US$15,000 (A$19,170) and four finalists receive US$5000 (A$6390). The winner will be announced on 6 April and the virtual awards ceremony will be held on 10 May. Read more about the award here.

 

Category: International news