Percival Everett and Tina Fey Are 2023 PEN Lit Award Winners

NOTE: This article is a republication- Source: Publishers Weekly (by Sophia Stewart).

The 58th annual PEN Literary Awards were held March 2 at the Town Hall in midtown Manhattan, awarding more than $350,000 in prizes to writers, editors, and translators. The ceremony was hosted by Kal Penn, who in his opening remarks noted that this year marked the centennial of PEN America's founding. He stressed that the organization's mission is just as important day as it was 100 years ago, and set the tone for the evening with topical jokes about book bans and the recent controversies surrounding Roald Dahl, Scott Adams, and J.K. Rowling.

Among the 17 literary awards and grants presented throughout the evening, the biggest winner was Percival Everett, who received the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for his novel Dr. No (Graywolf Press), about a professor of mathematics who researches "nothingness" and the aspiring supervillain who attempts to recruit him. In his acceptance speech, Everett thanked Graywolf, which he said he has been with for the past 29 years, during which time he has "had one editor: Fiona McCrae." (McCrae retired last summer.)

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