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2023 Literature Award Winners

Contact: Ashley Fedor

[email protected]

(212) 368-5900

New York, March 7, 2023 – The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the names of 18 writers who will receive its 2023 literature awards, to be presented at our annual Ceremonial in May. The prizes honor both established and emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. The Academy’s 300 members propose candidates, and a rotating committee of writers selects winners. This year’s committee members were Amy Hempel (chair), John Guare, Elizabeth Kolbert, Sigrid Nunez, Mona Simpson, Rosanna Warren, and Joy Williams.

Award of Merit for Drama
$25,000 to an outstanding playwright.

BRUCE NORRIS

Arts and Letters Awards in Literature
Eight awards of $10,000 each honoring exceptional accomplishment in any genre.

JENNIFER CROFT
NATALIE DIAZ
FORREST GANDER
JAMES IJAMES
MONA MANSOUR
JOSHUA PRAGER
HUGH RAFFLES
ATSURO RILEY

Blake-Dodd Prize
$25,000 for achievement in nonfiction.

MASHA GESSEN

Benjamin Hadley Danks Award
$20,000 to an exceptional writer.

MEGHAN O’GIEBLYN

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
$5,000 for a work of first fiction (novel or short stories) published in 2022.

MORGAN TALTY
for Night of the Living Rez

Addison M. Metcalf Award
$10,000 to a young writer of great promise.

IMBOLO MBUE

Arthur Rense Poetry Prize
$20,000 to an exceptional poet.

SHANE MCCRAE

Rosenthal Family Foundation Award
$10,000 to a young writer of considerable literary talent for a work published in 2022.

ANNA DEFOREST
for A History of Present Illness

John Updike Award
$20,000 for a writer whose work has demonstrated consistent excellence.

HERNAN DIAZ

Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award
$20,000 to a writer in recognition for the quality of their prose style.

LAUREN GROFF

E. B. White Award
$10,000 for achievement in children’s literature.

JACQUELINE WOODSON

The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Early members include William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Julia Ward Howe, Henry James, Edward MacDowell, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. The Academy’s 300 members are elected for life and pay no dues.

In addition to electing new members as vacancies occur, the Academy seeks to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes totaling more than $1 million, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of new works of musical theater, purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country, and presenting talks and concerts.

© 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters