Picked from among 350 novels and short story collections, Sherman Alexie’s War Dances has won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
The award was judged by Rilla Askew, Kyoko Mori, and Al Young, analyzing books from more than 90 publishing houses, small presses, and academic presses.
Judge Young had this statement about the book: “War Dances taps every vein and nerve, every tissue, every issue that quickens the current blood-pulse: parenthood, divorce, broken links, sex, gender and racial conflict, substance abuse, medical neglect, 9/11, Official Narrative vs. What Really Happened, settler religion vs. native spirituality; marketing, shopping, and war, war, war. All the heartbreaking ways we don’t live now–this is the caring, eye-opening beauty of this rollicking, bittersweet gem of a book.”