NEW YORK — Barbara Ehrenreich, Ross Gay and Michael X. Wang are among the winners of prizes from PEN America, the literary and human rights organization.
During a virtual ceremony Thursday, Gay’s “Be Holding: A Poem” received the $75,000 Jean Stein Award for a book-length work which has “broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form.” Ehrenreich’s “Had I Known” won the $15,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for essays by a “seasoned writer” and Wang’s “Further News of Defeat” was given the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for the best first book of short stories.
Also Thursday, Kawai Strong Washburn’s “Sharks in the Time of Saviors” won the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel.
