PEN/Faulkner Award 2017: Complete list of winners

The PEN/Faulkner Award has long been one of America’s most respected honors for literary fiction, celebrating the kind of ambitious, beautifully crafted novels that might not always top the bestseller lists but earn the deep admiration of serious readers and writers alike. The 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction went to Imbolo Mbue for her stunning debut novel Behold the Dreamers, a choice that reflected the award’s commitment to recognizing fresh voices tackling profound themes with nuance and emotional depth. Mbue’s novel—a multigenerational story anchored by a Cameroonian immigrant family navigating love, ambition, and the American dream during the 2008 financial crisis—demonstrated exactly the kind of literary excellence the PEN/Faulkner Award seeks to honor.

What made Mbue’s win particularly significant was that it arrived early in her career, validating both her artistic vision and the publishing world’s increasingly attentive ear toward diverse perspectives and immigrant narratives. The PEN/Faulkner Award, named after the Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner, has a storied history of recognizing writers whose work contributes meaningfully to American literary culture, and Mbue’s assured storytelling and complex character portraits fit squarely within that tradition. The recognition would help propel Behold the Dreamers into wider readership and cemented 2017 as a year when literary awards showed genuine enthusiasm for ambitious, contemporary fiction grounded in lived experience.

Below, you’ll find more details about this year’s distinguished winner and what made her work stand out to the judges.

Fiction

• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue