PEN/Literary Award short list includes small and indie publishers

The shortlists for the PEN Literary Awards were announced today, and there's Graywolf Press (Leslie Jamison and Claudia Rankine) as well as books published by other small presses--a growing force in the world of publishing. Tin House, Sarabande, Princeton University Press, Soho.

The winners will be announced May 13, with an awards ceremony in June.

Here are the lists, with links to Star Tribune reviews when available.

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000): To an author whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2014—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.

The UnAmericans (W. W. Norton & Company), Molly Antopol

Ruby (Hogarth), Cynthia Bond

Redeployment (Penguin Press), Phil Klay

Love Me Back (Doubleday), Merritt Tierce

PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): For a book of essays published in 2014 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.

Moral Imagination (Princeton University Press), David Bromwich

Theater of Cruelty (New York Review Books), Ian Buruma

Loitering (Tin House Books), Charles D'Ambrosio

Limber (Sarabande Books), Angela Pelster

PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences published in 2014.

War of the Whales (Simon & Schuster), Joshua Horwitz

How We Got to Now (Riverhead Books), Steven Johnson

The Sixth Extinction (Henry Holt and Co.), Elizabeth Kolbert

Proof (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Adam Rogers

PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in 2013 or 2014.

Our Declaration (Liveright), Danielle Allen

League of Denial (Crown Archetype), Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru

Five Days at Memorial (Crown), Sheri Fink

This Changes Everything (Simon & Schuster), Naomi Klein

PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2014.

An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press), Rabih Alameddine

Every Day Is for the Thief (Random House), Teju Cole

An Untamed State (Black Cat/ Grove Atlantic), Roxane Gay

The City Son (Soho Press), Samrat Upadhyay

PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2014.

Rebel Yell (Scribner), S. C. Gwynne

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (Scribner), Jeff Hobbs

Strange Glory (Alfred A. Knopf), Charles Marsh

Piero's Light (Pegasus Books), Larry Witham

PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2014.

Boy on Ice (W. W. Norton & Company), John Branch

Black Noon (Thomas Dunne Books), Art Garner

All Fishermen are Liars (Simon & Schuster), John Gierach

Deep (Eamon Dolan Books), James Nestor

PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000): For a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2014.

Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream by Kim Hyesoon (Action Books), translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi

I Am the Beggar of the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), translated from the Pashto by Eliza Griswold

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Juana Inés de la Cruz (W. W. Norton & Company), translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman

Guantanamo by Frank Smith (Les Figues Press), translated from the Spanish by Vanessa Place

PEN Translation Prize ($3,000): For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2014.

The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla (New York Review Books), translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush

The Symmetry Teacher by Andrei Bitov (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon

Baboon by Naja Marie Aidt (Two Lines Press), translated from the Danish by Denise Newman