The PEN Open Book Award (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is an award intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing industry. Created in 1991 by the PEN American Center (today PEN America), the award ensures custodians of language and literature are representative of the American people.
The Committee discusses mutual concerns and strategies for advancing writing and professional activities, and coordinates Open Book events. While multiple awards were presented in previous years, the PEN Open Book Award now presents one award every year to books published in the United States (but without citizenship or residency requirements) by "authors of color who have not received wide media coverage".
The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centers around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes.
Honorees
PEN Open Book Award After 2010, the Beyond Margins Award was renamed the PEN Open Book Award. +PEN Open Book Award winners and finalistsYearAuthorTitleResult2011Serious MenWinnerUp Jump the BoogieRunner Up2012WinnerOil on WaterFinalistWater Puppets2013Gun Dealers' DaughterWinner (tie)AllegianceFinalistOur AndromedaWhen My Brother Was an Aztec2014Cowboys and East IndiansWinner (tie)domina Un/bluedDuppy ConquerorFinalistGhana Must GoLeaving Tulsa2015Citizen: An American LyricWinnerFinalistEvery Day Is for the Thief2016ChordWinnerBastards of the Reagan EraFinalistForest Primeval: PoemsTrace: Memory, History, Race, and the American LandscapeWhere the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey2017What Is Not Yours Is Not YoursWinnerBlackacreFinalistLookThe Book of Memory2018WinnerAugustownFinalistLessons on Expulsion: PoemsMy Soul Looks Back: A MemoirOrdinary Beast: Poems2019Heads of the Colored PeopleWinnerCape Verdean BluesFinalistEye LevelHow to Sit: A Memoir in Stories and EssaysTeeth Never Sleep2020The Grave on the WallWinnerBuild Yourself a BoatFinalistBe RecorderErouWe Cast a Shadow2021InheritorsWinnerA Treatise on StarsFinalistHow to Pronounce Knife: StoriesUn-AmericanWild Peach 2022CurbWinner Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts Finalist Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir Names for Light: A Family History White Magic2023WinnerShutterFinalistGorgoneionAll The Flowers Kneeling Last Summer on State Street2024Fire RushWinnerMott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and HomecomingFinalist2025Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless TimesWinnerFinalistBlack Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism 2026FinalistIbisNatural HistoryNo RhododendronsMedicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools Beyond Margins Award Prior to 2010, the PEN Open Book Award was referred to as the Beyond Margins Award, and several books were selected per year as joint winners. +Beyond Margins Award winnersYearAuthorTitleEarlierwinners Yo-Yo Boing! Say Goodnight (ed.)The NuyorAsian Anthology 2002 Illiterate Heart Eye of the Fish A Map to the Next World: Poetry and Tales Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories Song of the Water Saints2004 West of the Jordan: A Novel The Interpreter The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping Smoking Lovely Knee-Deep in Wonder: A Novel2005 Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun (ed.)And It Don’t Stop: The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years Inheritance Autopsy of an Engine, and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant The Temperature of This Water2006 Directions to the Beach of the Dead Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora Real Karaoke People Dancing in the Dark The Man with My Face2007 Half of a Yellow Sun Blood Beats, Vol. 1 Recyclopedia Theater of Night2008 Song for Night Tales of the Out and the Gone Transparency The Perfect Man The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn2009 Say You're One of Them Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems Changing2010 Flood Song Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History
References
External links Official site