On March 23, 2020 the Indian-origin American author Ruchika Tomar is named as the winner of the annual PEN/Hemingway Award 2020 for her 1st novel (debut) ”A Prayer for Travelers”. She hails from California & is currently working as a lecturer at Stanford University.
Key Points
i.The award includes a prize of USD 25,000 & also a 1 month residency fellowship (includes all finalists & runner up) at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, worth USD 10,000.
ii.The 2 runner-ups of the award are Madeline ffitch for her novel Stay and Fight & Regina Porter for her novel The Travelers.
iii.The winner will be selected by a panel of 3 esteemed writers & The award will be given at a special ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.
iv.Ruchika Tomar joins the 4 Decades of Literary Excellence including Marilynne Robinson, Edward P. Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, Tommy Orange, Jennifer Haigh, ZZ Packer, George Saunders, Ha Jin, Yiyun Li, Teju Cole, and Ottessa Moshfegh.
About the book
It was published on July 9, 2019. It states about the friendship of 2 women which grows complicated until the relationship breaks apart, and one of the friends disappears.
Gist about the award
- Mary Hemingway founded the award in 1976 to honor her late husband Ernest Hemingway who is an American journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and sportsman.
- The award honors the debut novel which is of extraordinary merit by an American author who has never published a full-length book of fiction.
- The John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum spans Hemingway’s entire lifetime & comprises over 90 % of his manuscripts, which makes the library the world’s principal centre for research on the life and work of him.
