Literary agent Nicole Aragi has won the 2014 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction. The award, which recognizes an editor, publisher, or agent who over the course of his or her career has "discovered, nurtured, and championed writers of fiction in the United States," is presented by the Center for Fiction.
Aragi set up her own agency, Aragi Inc., in 2002, and has represented authors like Junot Díaz, Nathan Englander, Denis Johnson, Colson Whitehead, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
The award is named in honor of Scribner's Maxwell E. Perkins, editor to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Previous winners include Jonathan Galassi, Gerald Howard, Nan Talese, and Amanda Urban. This year's award will be presented to Aragi at the Center's December 9 benefit and awards dinner in New York City.
