Awards: PEN America Literary; L.A. Times Book FInalists

Poet Layli Long Soldier's debut collection, Whereas (Graywolf Press), was honored with the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award at Tuesday night's PEN America Literary Awards ceremony in New York City. The judges called Whereas a "grand reckoning with language and history," and praised the author for her "elegant and fierce introspection" and "rectifying spirit of restless invention." Other award winners announced at the event included:

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000): Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang (Lenny)
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography ($5,000): Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell (Doubleday)
PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing ($10,000): The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (Scientific American/FSG)
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
PEN/Open Book Award: A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa by Alexis Okeowo (Hachette)
PEN Translation Prize: Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
PEN/Edward and Lily Tuck Award for Paraguayan Literature ($3,000): Fantasmario by Javier Viveros

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Finalists in 10 categories have been named for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which will be awarded April 20, on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The winner of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement is author John Rechy, and the Innovator's Award will be presented to Well-Read Black Girl founder Glory Edim. See the complete list of finalists here.

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