PEN America has announced the finalists for the 2020 PEN America Literary Awards. The prize money attached to the awards totals to more than $330,000. The winners will be announced live at the 2020 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on March 2 at the Town Hall in New York City, to be hosted by Seth Meyers.

PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000)

  • The Undying, Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press)
  • Where Reasons End, Yiyun Li (Random House)
  • The World Doesn’t Require You, Rion Amilcar Scott (Liveright)
  • Rusty Brown, Chris Ware (Pantheon Graphic Library)

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection ($25,000)

  • The Trojan War Museum, Ayşe Papatya Bucak (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • Sabrina & Corina, Kali Fajardo-Anstine (One World)
  • Last of Her Name, Mimi Lok (Kaya Press)
  • Home Remedies, Xuan Juliana Wang (Hogarth)
  • Lot, Bryan Washington (Riverhead Books)

PEN/Hemingway Award for First Novel ($25,000)

  • Stay and Fight, Madeline ffitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • 99 Nights in Logar, Jamil Jan Kochai (Viking)
  • Big Familia, Tomas Moniz (Acre Books)
  • The Travelers, Regina Porter (Hogarth)
  • A Prayer for Travelers, Ruchika Tomar (Riverhead Books)

PEN Open Book Award ($5,000)

  • Build Yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix (Haymarket Books)
  • Be Recorder, Carmen Giménez Smith (Graywolf Press)
  • Erou, Maya Phillips (Four Way Books)
  • We Cast a Shadow, Maurice Carlos Ruffin (One World)
  • The Grave on the Wall, Brandon Shimoda (City Lights Books)

PEN Translation Prize ($3,000)

  • If You Cross the River: A Novel, Geneviève Damas, translated from the French by Jody Gladding (Milkweed Editions)
  • The Ten Loves of Nishino, Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell (Europa Editions)
  • Beyond Babylon, Igiaba Scego, translated from the Italian by Aaron Robertson (Two Lines Press)
  • Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A Novel, Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead Books)
  • The Scent of Buenos Aires: Stories, Hebe Uhart, translated from the Spanish by Maureen Shaughnessy (Archipelago Books)

PEN Award for Poetry In Translation ($3,000)

  • Final Matters: Selected Poems, 2004-2010, Szilárd Borbély, translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (Princeton University Press)
  • Room in Rome, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, translated from the Spanish by David Shook (Cardboard House Press)
  • Daybook 1918: Early Fragments, J.V. Foix, translated from the Catalan by Lawrence Venuti (Northwestern University Press)
  • Killing Plato, Chantal Maillard, translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert (New Directions Publishing)
  • The Winter Garden Photograph, Reina María Rodríguez, translated from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra and Nancy Gates Madsen (Ugly Duckling Presse)

PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000)

  • I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz, Eve Babitz (New York Review Books Classics)
  • Resurrection of the Wild: Meditations on Ohio’s Natural Landscape, Deborah Fleming (Kent State University Press)
  • Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays, Leslie Jamison (Little, Brown and Company)
  • I Like To Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, Emily Nussbaum (Random House)
  • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino (Random House)

PEN/Jacqueline Bogard Weld Award for Biography ($5,000)

  • Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas, Stephen Budiansky (W. W. Norton & Company)
  • Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall (W. W. Norton & Company)
  • Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures, Adina Hoffman (Yale University Press)
  • Sontag: Her Life and Work, Benjamin Moser (Ecco)
  • Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution, Helen Zia (Ballantine Books)

PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000)

  • Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition, Patricia S. Churchland (W. W. Norton & Company)
  • Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves, Frans de Waal (W. W. Norton & Company)
  • On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galapagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden, Elizabeth Hennessy (Yale University Press)
  • The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, Dahr Jamail (New Press)
  • Losing Earth: A Recent History, Nathaniel Rich (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)