Virginia Evans won the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel for The Correspondent (Crown). The judges said the winning book "tells us it's never too late to atone for the mistakes of the past. It's never too late to fall in love. It is a compassionate, hopeful, moving novel, deftly structured and vividly characterized, especially prescient in our times and compelling in any."
Evans will receive $10,000. Both Evans and the authors of the other finalists--Susanna Kwan for Awake in the Floating City (Pantheon) and Maggie Su for Blob (Harper Perennial)--will be honored on April 26 at the 50th Anniversary PEN/Hemingway Award Ceremony, to be held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Mass.
They will also be given a two-week residency at Ucross Foundation, which includes a private studio space, living accommodations, meals prepared by a professional chef, and staff support on Ucross's 20,000-acre ranch in northern Wyoming.
"Selecting one work of fiction from the many stellar submissions we received this year was a monumental task for which we owe a debt of gratitude to our judges," said PEN/Faulkner Awards committee chair Lauren Francis-Sharma. "In The Correspondent, we see a novel that reminds us of the profound and often life-altering discoveries that await us in an earnest engagement with literature and the practice of writing. We look forward to celebrating this beautiful and inspiring novel alongside our other finalists at this year's awards ceremony."