PEN America has announced the longlist for the 2021 PEN America Literary Awards. The award will confer over $380,000 to writers and translators from different categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, essay, science writing, translation, and more.
This year’s longlist features seven African writers in three different categories.
Akweake Emezi’s third novel, The Death of Vivek Oji is being shortlisted for PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000). The category is awarded to “a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact, which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence.”
The longlist for the PEN Translation Prize ($3,000) for a book-length translation of prose from any language into English features novels by four African writers:
A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa which was translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
Mansours Eyes by Ryad Girod translated from the French by Chris Clarke.
Our Riches by Kaouther Adimi translated from the French by Chris Andrews.
That Hair by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida translated from the Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker.
The longlist for the PEN Open Book Award ($10,000) for an exceptional book-length work of any literary genre by an author of color features Leila Chatti’s latest book of poetry, Deluge, and Hafizah Geter’s debut poetry collection, Un-American.
The Finalists for all book awards will be announced in February 2021. Click here to see other books on the longlist.
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