PEN America announced the winners of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country.
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize: To an author whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2012 — represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.
Winner: A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction: To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in the United States during 2011 or 2012.
Winner: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (downloadable audiobook, eBook)
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay: For a book of essays published in 2012 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.
Winner: What Light Can Do by Robert Hass
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award: For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences published in 2012.
Winner: Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow
PEN Open Book Award: For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2012.
Winners: Gun Dealers’ Daughter by Gina Apostol & The Grey Album by Kevin Young
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography: For a distinguished biography published in 2012.
Winner: The Black Count by Tom Reiss (downloadable audiobook, eBook)
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing: To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2012.
Winner: Over Time by Frank Deford
PEN Translation Prize: For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2012.
Winner: The Island of Second Sight by Albert Vigoleis Thelen, translated from the German by Donald O. White