PEN/Faulkner Award 1992: Complete list of winners

Don DeLillo’s towering novel Mao II captured the 1992 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, cementing the author’s place among America’s most provocative contemporary writers. The PEN/Faulkner Award, one of the country’s most prestigious honors for American fiction, has long served as a counterweight to the more commercially-oriented major book prizes, celebrating literary merit and artistic boldness. DeLillo’s win that year felt particularly resonant—Mao II, with its sprawling meditation on celebrity, mass movements, and the written word in an age of spectacle, exemplified the kind of intellectually ambitious work the award champions.

The early 1990s represented a fascinating moment in American letters, and DeLillo’s recognition reflected the literary establishment’s appetite for challenging, idea-driven fiction. Mao II had already generated significant critical attention upon its publication, and the PEN/Faulkner honor validated what many readers already sensed: this was a major work by a major American novelist grappling with the defining anxieties of contemporary culture. For those tracking the PEN Faulkner Award winners or following the broader landscape of prestigious fiction awards, DeLillo’s triumph underscored how the prize consistently identifies writers pushing the boundaries of the novel form itself.

Here are the complete 1992 PEN/Faulkner Award winners:

Fiction

• Mao II by Don DeLillo