Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Winners.

The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is awarded annually to a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. The award is funded by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, which has been administered by the Hemingway Society since 1987, and PEN New England. It is named for Ernest Hemingway, the author of such novels as For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea. Mary Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.

The winner is selected by a panel of three distinguished fiction writers and receives a cash prize of US$8000. Along with the winner, two finalists and two runners-up receive a Ucross Residency Fellowship at the Ucross Foundation, a retreat for artists and writers on a 22,000 acre (89 km²) ranch on the high plains in Ucross, Wyoming. The award ceremony is held at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

Past Winners

2007 – Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End

2006 Ben Fountain Brief Encounters With Che Guevara

2005 Yiyun Li A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

2004 Chris Abani Graceland

2003 Jennifer Haigh Mrs. Kimble

2002 Gabriel Brownstein The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt. 3W

2001 Justin Cronin Mary and O'Neil

2000 Akhil Sharma An Obedient Father

1999 Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies

1998 Rosina Lippi Homestead

1997 Charlotte Bacon A Private State

1996 Ha Jin Ocean of Words

1995 Chang-Rae Lee Native Speaker

1994 Susan Power The Grass Dancer

1993 Dagoberto Gilb The Magic of Blood

1992 Edward P. Jones Lost in the City

1991 Louis Begley Wartime Lies

1990 Bernard Cooper Maps to Anywhere

1989 Mark Richard The Ice at the Bottom of the World

1988 Jane Hamilton The Book of Ruth

1987 Lawrence Thornton Imagining Argentina

1986 Mary Ward Brown Tongues of Flame

1985 Alan V. Hewar Lady's Time

1984 Josephine Humphreys Dreams of Sleep

1983 Joan Chase During the Reign of the Queen of Sheba

1982 Bobbie Ann Mason Shiloh and Other Stories

1981 Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping

1980 Joan Silber Household Words

1979 Alan Saperstein Mom Kills Kids and Self

1978 Reuben Bercovitch Hasen

1977 Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other

1976 Renata Adler Speedboat

1975 Loyd Little Parthian Shot

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