PEN/Hemingway Award 2019: Complete list of winners

The 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award celebrated one of the year’s most electrifying debuts: Tommy Orange’s There There, a novel that arrived with the force of a cultural reckoning. The PEN/Hemingway Award, which honors the most distinctive debut novel or short story collection published in English, has long served as a prestigious launching pad for emerging voices—and Orange’s interconnected narrative about urban Native American life in Oakland proved why this recognition matters so much in the literary world. There There didn’t just announce a talented new writer; it represented a significant shift in whose stories were finally reaching mainstream audiences and critical acclaim.

Orange’s win resonated beyond the usual award-season conversations because his novel tackled themes of identity, displacement, and violence with a narrative structure that felt genuinely innovative. Rather than following a single protagonist, There There weaves together multiple voices and perspectives, creating a mosaic that captures the complexity of contemporary Native American experience in ways that felt both urgent and intimate. The PEN/Hemingway Award’s choice highlighted how debut fiction could be formally ambitious while remaining deeply human—a reminder that the prize recognizes not just promise, but genuine artistic achievement from writers finding their voices on the page.

Below, you’ll find the complete details of the 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award winners and finalists:

Debut Novel

• There There by Tommy Orange