2013 PEN Literary Award Winners

PEN America announced the winners of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country.

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