The longlist for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction has been announced, with 10 authors in contention for the annual prize honoring an outstanding work of fiction by a U.S. permanent resident.
Percival Everett made the longlist for James, his retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The novel previously won the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award. Danzy Senna, was nominated for Colored Television; Everett and Senna, who are married, both made the National Book Critics Circle Award longlist last year as well.
Louise Erdrich was longlisted for The Mighty Red, alongside Garth Greenwell for Small Rain. Both authors were shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2017.
Also making the longlist were ’Pemi Aguda for Ghostroots, Susan Muaddi Darraj for Behind You Is the Sea, Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, Ruben Reyes Jr. for There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ben Shattuck for The History of Sound, and John Vercher for Devil Is Fine.
The PEN/Faulkner Award was established in 1981. Past winners include E.L. Doctorow for Billy Bathgate and The March, Michael Cunningham for The Hours, Yiyun Li for The Book of Goose, and Claire Jiménez for What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez.
The shortlist for this year’s award will be revealed next month, with the winner announced in April.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
