Judges have selected the five finalists for the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction:
- Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World)
- The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove Press)
- Small Scale Sinners by Mahreen Sohail (A Public Space Books)
“It is hard to imagine five finalists whose themes better match what many are contending with today: regret, silence, shame, a break from norms,” said PEN/Faulkner Awards Committee Chair Lauren Francis-Sharma. “Within these stories lie tendrils of tenderness, love, commitment to family, and even a reach for oneself, making these selections all the more timely, all the more courageous. Please join us in celebrating these marvelous and compelling voices of American fiction.”
This year’s judges—Samantha Hunt, Tania James, and De’Shawn Charles Winslow—considered 387 eligible novels and short story collections by American authors published in the US during the 2025 calendar year. Submissions came from 155 publishing houses, including small and academic presses.
Hunt, James, and Winslow prepared the following statement: “The five vital, brilliant books on our shortlist draw us into humanity’s complex core of beauty, violence, joy, intelligence, and imagination. Families spin; nature embraces life; connections whisper or shout; hearts break then grow while human truths emerge. These books—outstretched hands—verify that the small can consistently counter mighty power structures endangering our earth and that art always stands resilient, emancipating, and essential.”
The “first among equals” winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced in early April. The remaining four finalists will each receive an honorarium of $5,000. All five authors will be honored on May 6 at the 46th Anniversary PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration, which will be held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC. More information about the event is available for those interested.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Addie E. Citchens was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and lives in New Orleans. A graduate of Jackson State University, she studied in the Florida State University Creative Writing Program and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the Oxford American’s “Best of the South,” Midnight & Indigo’s speculative fiction anthology, and other publications. Her blues history work features prominently in Mississippi Folklife, and she has been heard on The Mississippi Arts Hour on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. She was the inaugural recipient of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux Writer’s Fellowship, and her short story “That Girl” won the O. Henry Prize. Dominion is her first novel.
Quiara Alegría Hudes is an American writer. Her work includes the Pulitzer Prize winning play Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award winning Broadway musical and major motion picture In the Heights, the animated film Vivo, and the essay High Tide of Heartbreak. As a prison reform activist, Hudes and her cousin founded Emancipated Stories, a platform where people behind bars can share one page of their life story with the world.
Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature and received the Prix Médicis Étranger in France. Khemiri has been a finalist for Sweden’s most prestigious literary prize three times, winning it once. His play Invasion! earned an Obie Award for Best Script. A recipient of the Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, Khemiri’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. His novel, The Sisters, is his first book written in English. Khemiri lives in Brooklyn with his family and teaches creative writing at NYU.
Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Award. Her books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. She lives in Portland, Maine.
Mahreen Sohail was born in Islamabad, Pakistan. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar, and was a Writing Fellow at A Public Space and a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Kenyon Review, Pushcart Prize XLII, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, DC.
ABOUT OUR 2026 JUDGES
Samantha Hunt is the author of five books, including The Seas, The Unwritten Book, and The Dark Dark. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. Her writing has been translated into thirteen languages. Hunt won a Bard Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She teaches at Pratt Institute.
Tania James is the author of four works of fiction, most recently Loot (Knopf), which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award and the Carol Shields Prize. Her short stories have appeared in Freeman’s; Granta; The New Yorker; O, The Oprah Magazine; and One Story, among other places. A 2025 Guggenheim fellow in fiction, she lives in Washington DC.
De’Shawn Charles Winslow is the author of Decent People and In West Mills, which was a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, an American Book Award recipient, and a Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction winner, as well as a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Award, Lambda Literary Award, and Publishing Triangle Award. He was born and raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He currently lives in New Jersey.
ABOUT THE PEN/FAULKNER FOUNDATION
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation champions the breadth and power of fiction in America. We achieve that mission by administering the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story to help call the world’s attention toward literary achievements; by bringing free books and authors into under-resourced DC schools to inspire the next generation of readers and writers; and by curating public literary programs to amplify the work of accomplished authors.