DEBORAH EISENBERG RECEIVES

2011 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 PRESS CONTACTS: Garland Scott, (202) 675–0342, gscott@folger.edu             
Emma Snyder (202) 675-0345 esnyder@penfaulkner.org

Washington, DCDeborah Eisenberg’s The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (Picador) has been selected as the winner of the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.  The announcement was made today by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Susan Richards Shreve and Robert Stone, Co-Chairmen.

The judgesLaura Furman, William Kittredge, and Helena Maria Viramontes—considered approximately 320 novels and short story collections by American authors published in the US during the 2010 calendar year. Submissions came from over 125 publishing houses, including small and academic presses. There is no fee for a publisher or writer to submit a book.

The honored book, The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg, brings together four volumes of Eisenberg’s work: Transactions in a Foreign CurrencyUnder the 82nd AirborneAll Around Atlantis, andTwilight of the Superheroes, which was a PEN/Faulkner Finalist in 2007. Eisenberg’s stories have long been admired for their exceptional language and nuanced evocation of thought and emotion. About this collection, judge Laura Furman says, “From the first to the last of her collected stories, Deborah Eisenberg demonstrates her sharp intelligence, literary inventiveness, and her clear understanding of human interconnectedness as it exists in isolation. Eisenberg’s reader often has the feeling that her characters don’t quite understand either who they are or how they got themselves into their present fix.  The struggle of her characters to create a whole life from the shards of their experience and emotions forms the moral core of Deborah Eisenberg’s work.” The recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Deborah Eisenberg has also taught at the University of Virginia since 1994.

The PEN/Faulkner Award is America’s largest peer juried prize for fiction in the United States.  As winner, Eisenberg receives $15,000.  Each of the four finalists—Jennifer Egan for A Visit From The Goon Squad(Knopf); Jaimy Gordon for Lord of Misrule(McPherson & Co.); Eric Puchner for Model Home(Scribner); and  Brad Watson for Aliens in The Prime of Their Lives  (W.W. Norton)—receives $5,000. 

All five authors will be honored during the 31st anniversary PEN/Faulkner Award Ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library, located at 201 East Capitol Street, SE, on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 7:00 p.m.  Tickets are $100, and can be purchased by phoning the Folger Box Office at (202) 544-7077, or online atwww.folger.edu/penfaulkneraward

The PEN/Faulkner Award was first given in 1981. Past winners include last year’s winner Sherman Alexie, and Joseph O’Neill, E.L. Doctorow, Ann Patchett, Philip Roth, John Updike, and John Edgar Wideman, among others. A full list of winners is at https://www.penfaulkner.org/award_for_fiction

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is committed to building audiences for exceptional literature and bringing writers together with their readers.  This mission is accomplished through a reading series at the Folger Shakespeare Library by distinguished writers who have won the respect of readers and writers alike; thePEN/Faulkner Award; the PEN/Malamud Award, honoring excellence in the short story; and theWriters in Schools program, which brings nationally and internationally-acclaimed authors to public high school classrooms, and to book groups of teen parents, and of incarcerated youth in Washington, DC.

 

For More Information, visit www.penfaulkner.org