This morning,
PEN America released the 2021 Literary Awards Finalists. More than forty-five imprints and presses are featured on the list, with half of the titles coming from university and indie presses. Twenty books are from writers making their literary debuts, and half the titles among the open-genre awards are poetry collections. Chosen by a cohort of judges representing a wide range of disciplines, backgrounds, identities, and aesthetic lineages, these fifty-five Finalist books represent a humbling selection of the year’s finest examples of literary excellence.
The stories on the Finalists lists are about parents, grandparents, and grandchildren, about siblings and their rivalries. These writers share the lives of people who are nonbinary and people who are transgender; people of all ages with changing bodies; immigrants and citizens and people seeking refuge; a basketball legend; a young woman who plucks factory chickens smooth; a tugboat driver; and Phillis Wheatley, Ame