PEN America revealed the longlists for its annual literary awards on Friday, and two authors have already declined the nonprofit group’s nominations over its response to the war in Gaza.
The longlist for the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, given to an outstanding book in any genre, initially included Kaveh Akbar’s novel, Martyr!, and Brandon Shimoda’s essay collection The Afterlife Is Letting Go.
On the social network Bluesky, the campaign Amplify Palestine posted a screenshot of an Instagram story from Akbar, in which the author said he was declining the nomination and referred readers to the website for Writers Against the War on Gaza. And Shimoda posted on Instagram that he was also declining his nomination “because of PEN’s continuously harmful response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, including to the murder of hundreds of Palestinian writers.” As of Monday morning, Akbar’s name is still on the list of nominees on PEN’s website, but Shimoda’s is not.
Last year, PEN America canceled its literary awards ceremony after a large number of authors withdrew their books from consideration over the group’s response to the Gaza war, which they felt was insufficiently supportive of the Palestinians.
Also nominated for this year’s Jean Stein Award were Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn, With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang, Soldiers and Kings by Jason de Léon, James by Percival Everett, All Fours by Miranda July, I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante, On Freedom by Timothy Snyder, and The Barn by Wright Thompson.
Nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel were Blackburn’s Dead in Long Beach, California; Michael Deagler’s Early Sobrieties; Cally Fiedorek’s Atta Boy; Amy Frykholm’s High Hawk; Scott Gordon’s Head Fake; Samuel Kọ́láwọlé’s The Road to the Salt Sea; Karol Lagodzki’s Controlled Conversations; Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit; Asha Thanki’s A Thousand Times Before; and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s Catalina.
A full list of nominees for the awards is available on PEN’s website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
