PEN America has announced its 2021 longlist for its annual literary awards.
This year, the longlist features seven African writers in the following categories: the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the PEN Translation Prize.
Akwaeke Emezi’s latest novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, is longlisted for the highly competitive PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000) 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.”
Though 2020 was a difficult year for most, it was an exceptional one for Emezi with The Death of Vivek Oji listed among the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Teen Vogue, and Vulture.
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 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
Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan - Mansour’s 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 shortlist will be announced in February.
