PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction

The PEN/Malamud Award

The PEN/Malamud Award and Memorial Reading were established by Bernard Malamud’s family to honor excellence in the art of the short story. The basis of the award fund was a $10,000 bequest from Mr. Malamud to the PEN American Center; the fund continues to grow through the generosity of many members of PEN and other friends, and with the proceeds from the annual readings. The readings and the fund are administered by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. A panel of PEN/Faulkner directors, together with representatives of Mr. Malamud’s literary executors, form the selection committee for the awards.

“I like packaging a self or two in a few pages, predicting lifetimes. The drama is terse, happens faster, and is often outlandish. A short story is a way of indicating the complexity of life in a few pages, producing the surprise and effect of a profound knowledge in a short time.”
–Bernard Malamud (1914–1986)

About Bernard Malamud

During his 37-year writing career, Bernard Malamud received the National Book Award twice, as well as the Pulitzer Prize, and the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement from the National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His published works include: The Natural, The Magic Barrel, The Fixer, and The Stories of Bernard Malamud. On short fiction, Malamud writes, “I love the pleasures of the short story. One of them is the fast payoff. Whatever happens happens quickly...Much occurs in the writing that isn’t expected, including some types you meet and become attached to. Before you know it you’ve collected two or three strangers swearing eternal love and friendship before they begin to make demands that divide and multiply.”