Percival Everett wins PEN USA Literary Award for Fiction

Judges Sandra Giedeman, Tom Lutz, and Merle Rubin say, "Percival Everett’s novel, Wounded is a brilliant re-imagining of the Western and a sophisticated examination of race and sexuality, done with exemplary finesse and lack of pretentiousness. Everett’s protagonist is John Hunt, an African American horse trainer in Wyoming who confounds cultural stereotypes, and who speaks with the colorful brevity of Mark Twain’s finest creations. Everett’s beautiful and remarkably economical prose style packs an enormous amount of action and emotional development into a small number of pages." The judges were pleased to extend recognition to an established writer who has accomplished so much in so many interesting directions in his body of work.

Finalists for the prize include Daniel Alarcon for War by Candlelight (HarperCollins), Karen Fisher for A Sudden Country (Random House), Luis Rodriguez for Music of the Mill (Rayo/HarperCollins) and William Vollman for Europe Central (Viking Penguin).

PEN Center USA’s annual awards program, established in 1982, is a unique regional competition that recognizes literary excellence in ten categories, including nonfiction, fiction, poetry and screen and theatrical plays. Distinguished panels of judges comprised of writers, editors and journalists selected this year’s winners and finalists from more than 500 entries; Los Angeles Times Deputy Op-Ed Editor Susan Brenneman served as chair of judges. 

PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. Among PEN’s various activities are public literary events, a mentorship project, literary awards and international human rights campaigns on behalf of writers who are censored or imprisoned.

Graywolf Press, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a literary nonprofit publisher dedicated to the creation and promotion of thoughtful and imaginative contemporary literature essential to a vital and diverse culture.