2025 PEN America Literary Awards Longlists

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

• Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Dead in Long Beach, California, Venita Blackburn (MCD)
• James, Percival Everett (Doubleday)
• All Fours, Miranda July (Riverhead)

PEN Open Book Award ($10,000)

• The Blueprint, Rae Giana Rashad (Harper)

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

• Softie, Megan Howell (West Virginia University Press)
• The Goodbye Process, Mary Jones (Zibby)
• Japa and Other Stories, Iheoma Nwachukwu (University of Georgia Press)
• The Ill-Fitting Skin, Shannon Robinson (Press 53)
• The Man in the Banana Trees, Marguerite Sheffer (University of Iowa Press)
• Beautiful Days, Zach Williams (Doubleday)

PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel ($10,000)

• Dead in Long Beach, California, Venita Blackburn (MCD)
• Fire Exit, Morgan Talty (Tin House)
• A Thousand Times Before, Asha Thanki (Viking)

PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection ($5,000)

• Go Figure, Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)
• Sonnets for a Missing Key, Percival Everett (Ren Hen)

PEN Translation Prize ($3,000)

• Verdigris, Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore (And Other Stories)
• The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead)