PEN/Faulkner Award 1981: Complete list of winners

The 1981 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction went to Walter Abish’s How German Is It, a novel that arrives at an especially resonant moment in literary awards history. Named after William Faulkner, the PEN/Faulkner Award has established itself as one of the most prestigious honors for American fiction, celebrating works that demonstrate exceptional craft and unflinching artistic vision. Abish’s win marked a significant recognition for experimental and intellectually ambitious fiction—his novel navigates questions of identity, language, and cultural memory in ways that challenged conventional narrative approaches of the era.

How German Is It stands as a particularly intriguing selection for 1981, arriving during a period when American literature was beginning to grapple more explicitly with metafictional and postmodern techniques. Abish’s distinctive prose style and his exploration of how language shapes perception make him a fitting heir to Faulkner’s own legacy of innovation and structural complexity. The novel’s preoccupation with cultural identity and the slippery nature of meaning through language offered readers something bracingly different from the literary mainstream, yet the PEN/Faulkner judges recognized in it the kind of serious literary achievement the award was designed to honor.

Below, you’ll find the complete details of this year’s winner and what made Abish’s work stand out among that year’s submissions.

Fiction

• How German Is It by Walter Abish