PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners and finalists

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Each year, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction honors the year's best published works of fiction by American citizens. The following list identifies winners in bold.

2010s

2018

Joan Silber, Improvement (winner)

Hernán Diaz, In The Distance (finalist)

Samantha Hunt, The Dark Dark (finalist)

Achy Obejas, The Tower of the Antilles (finalist)

Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing (finalist)


2017

Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers (winner)

Viet Dinh, After Disasters (finalist)

Louise Erdrich, LaRose (finalist)

Garth Greenwell, What Belongs to You (finalist)

Sunil Yapa, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (finalist)


2016

James Hannaham, Delicious Foods (winner)

Julie Iromuanya, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor (finalist)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer (finalist)

Elizabeth Tallent, Mendocino Fire (finalist)

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum (finalist)


2015

Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life (winner)

Jeffery Renard Allen, Song of the Shank (finalist)
Jennifer Clement, Prayers for the Stolen (finalist)
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (finalist)
Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation (finalist)

2014

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (winner)

Daniel Alarcón, At Night We Walk in Circles (finalist)
Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell (finalist)
Joan Silber, Fools (finalist)
Valerie Trueblood, Search Party: Stories of Rescue (finalist)

2013

Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club (winner)

Amelia Gray, Threats (finalist)
Laird Hunt, Kind One (finalist)
T. Geronimo Johnson, Hold It 'Til It Hurts (finalist)
Thomas Mallon, Watergate (finalist)
Writer biographies

2012

Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic (winner)

Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin (finalist)
Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmerelda: Nine Stories (finalist)
Anita Desai, The Artist of Disappearance (finalist)
Steven Millhauser, We Others: New and Selected Stories (finalist)
Writer biographies

2011

Deborah Eisenberg, The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (winner)

Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Good Squad (finalist)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (finalist)
Eric Puchner, Model Home (finalist)
Brad Watson, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (finalist)

2010

Sherman Alexie, War Dances (winner)

Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna (finalist)
Lorraine Lopéz, Homicide Survivors Picnic (finalist)
Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs (finalist)
Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor (finalist)

2000s

2009 Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (winner)

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles (finalist)
Susan Choi, A Person of Interest (finalist)
Richard Price, Lush Life (finalist)
Ron Rash, Serena (finalist)

2008

Kate Christensen, The Great Man (winner)

Annie Dillard, The Maytrees (finalist)
David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk (finalist)
T.M. McNally, The Gateway: Stories (finalist)
Ron Rash, Chemistry and Other Stories (finalist)

2007

Philip Roth, Everyman (winner)

Charles D'Ambrosio, The Dead Fish Museum (finalist)
Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes (finalist)
Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (finalist)
Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hagar's Children (finalist)

2006

E.L. Doctorow, The March (winner)

Karen Fisher, A Sudden Country (finalist)
William Henry Lewis, I Got Somebody in Staunton (finalist)
James Salter, Last Night (finalist)
Bruce Wagner, The Chrysanthemum Place (finalist)

2005

Ha Jin, War Trash (winner)

Jerome Charyn, The Green Lantern (finalist)
Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker (finalist)
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (finalist)
Steve Yarbrough, Prisoners of War (finalist)

2004

John Updike, The Early Stories 1953-1975 (winner)

Frederick Barthelme, Elroy Nights (finalist)
ZZ Packer, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (finalist)
Caryl Phillips, A Distant Shore (finalist)
Tobias Wolff, Old School (finalist)

2003

Sabina Murray, The Caprices (winner)

Peter Cameron, The City of Your Final Destination (finalist)
William Kennedy, Roscoe (finalist)
Victor LaValle, The Ecstatic (finalist)
Gilbert Sorrentino, Little Casino (finalist)

2002

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (winner)

Karen Joy Fowler, Sister Noon (finalist)
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (finalist)
Claire Messud, The Hunters (finalist)
Manil Suri, The Death of Vishnu (finalist)

2001

Philip Roth, The Human Stain (winner)

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (finalist)
Millicent Dillon, Harry Gold (finalist)
Denis Johnson, The Name of the World (finalist)
Mona Simpson, Off Keck Road (finalist)

2000

Ha Jin, Waiting (winner)

Frederick Busch, The Night Inspector (finalist)
Ken Kalfus, Pu-239 And Other Russian Fantasies (finalist)
Elizabeth Strout, Amy and Isabelle (finalist)
Lily Tuck, Siam, or the Woman or Shot a Man (finalist)

1990s

1999

Michael Cunningham, The Hours (winner)

Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter (finalist)
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (finalist)
Brian Morton, Starting Out in the Evening (finalist)
Richard Selzer, The Doctor Stories (finalist)

1998

Rafi Zabor, The Bear Comes Home (winner)

Donald Antrim, The Hundred Brothers (finalist)
Rilla Askew, The Mercy Seat' (finalist)
Mary Gaitskill, Because They Wanted To (finalist)
Francisco Goldman, The Ordinary Seaman (finalist)

1997

Gina Barriault, Women in Their Beds (winner)

Daniel Akst, St. Burl's Obiturary (finalist)
Kathleen Cambor, The Book of Mercy (finalist)
Ron Hansen, Atticus (finalist)
Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother (finalist)

1996

Richard Ford, Independence Day (winner)

Madison Smart Bell, All Souls' Rising (finalist)
William Gass, The Tunnel (finalist)
Claire Messud, When the World Was Steady (finalist)
A.J. Verdelle, The Good Negress (finalist)

1995

David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars (winner)

Frederich Busch, The Children in the Woods (finalist)
Ursula Hegi, Stones from the River (finalist)
Joyce Carol Oates, What I Lived For (finalist)
Joanna Scott, Various Antidotes (finalist)

1994

Philip Roth, Operation Shylock (winner)

Stanley Elkin, Van Gogh's Room at Arles (finalist)
Dagoberto Gilb, The Magic of Blood (finalist)
Fae Myenne Ng, Bone (finalist)
Kate Wheeler, Not Where I Started From (finalist)

1993

E. Annie Proulx, Postcards (winner)

Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (finalist)
Francisco Goldman, The Long Night of White Chickens (finalist)
Maureen Howard, Natural History (finalist)
Sylvia Watanabe, Talking to the Dead (finalist)

1992

Don DeLillo, Mao II (winner)

Stephen Dixon, Frog (finalist)
Paul Gervais, Extraordinary People (finalist)
Allan Gurganus, White People (finalist)
Bradford Morrow, The Almanac Branch (finalist)

1991

John Edgar Wideman, Philadelphia Fire (winner)

Paul Auster, The Music of Chance (finalist)
Joanne Meschery, A Gentleman's Guide to the Frontier (finalist)
Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum (finalist)
Joanna Scott, Arrogance (finalist)

1990

E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate (winner)

Russell Banks, Affliction (finalist)
Molly Gloss, The Jump-Off Creek (finalist)
Josephine Jacobsen, On the Island (finalist)
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Leaving Brooklyn (finalist)

1980s

1989

James Salter, Dusk (winner)

Mary McGarry Morris, Vanished (finalist)
Thomas Savage, The Corner of Rife and Pacific (finalist)
Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Death of Methuselah (finalist)

1988

T. Coraghessan Boyle, World's End (winner)

Richard Bausch, Spirits (finalist)
Alice McDermott, That Night (finalist)
Cynthia Ozick, The Messiah of Stockholm (finalist)
Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina (finalist)

1987

Richard Wiley, Soldiers in Hiding (winner)

Richard Ford, The Sportswriter (finalist)
Charles Johnson, The Sorcerer's Apprentice (finalist)
Janet Kauffman, Collaborators (finalist)
Maureen Howard, Expensive Habits (finalist)

1986

Peter Taylor, The Old Forest and Other Stories (winner)

William Gaddis, Carpenter's Gothic (finalist)
Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (finalist)
Hugh Nissenson, The Tree of Life (finalist)
Helen Norris, The Christmas Wife (finalist)
Grace Paley, Later the Same Day (finalist)

1985

Tobias Wolff, The Barracks Thief (winner)

Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra (finalist)
Donald Hayes, The Dixie Association (finalist)
David Leavitt, Family Dancing (finalist)
James Purdy, On Glory's Courses (finalist)

1984

John Edgar Wideman, Sent for You Yesterday (winner)

Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford (finalist)
William Kennedy, Ironweed (finalist)
Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River (finalist)
Bernard Malamud, The Stories (finalist)

1983

Toby Olson, Seaview (winner)

Maureen Howard, Grace Abounding (finalist)
Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh and Other Stories (finalist)
George Steiner, The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (finalist)
Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (finalist)
William S. Wilson, Birthplace (finalist)

1982

David Bradley, The Chaneysville Incident (winner)

Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories (finalist)
Richard Bausch, Take Me Back (finalist)
Mark Helprin, Ellis Island and Other Stories (finalist)
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (finalist)
Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise (finalist)

1981

Walter Abish, How German Is It? (winner)

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus (finalist)
Walker Percy, The Second Coming (finalist)
Gilbert Sorrentino, Aberration of Starlight (finalist)
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (finalist)