PEN America revealed the winners for its literary awards last night.
PEN America awarded Lauren Redniss the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary ScienceWriting Award for Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future (Random House). The PEN Open Book Award went to Rick Barot for Chord (Sarabande Books). Ta-Nehisi Coates won the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. His father, Paul Coates, accepted the award on his behalf. Author Mia Alvar won the 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for her short story collection In the Country.
Toni Morrison received the the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. Morrison was unable to attend the ceremony due to a prior engagement at Harvard. Pantheon Books editor Erroll McDonald accepted on her behalf.