In 2007, PEN awarded 13 prizes to writers, translators, publishers, and organizations. Included in this year's winners are James Carroll, Peter Covino, Diane Les Becquets, David Hinton, Naomi Iizuka, Janna Levin, Philip Roth, and Sandra Smith. Presented below is a selection of their work.

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Copyright © 2007 Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center

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A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin There is no beginning. I’ve tried to invent one but it was a lie and I don’t want to be a liar. This story will end where it began, in the middle. A triangle or a circle. A closed loop with three points. [Read more] Everyman by Philip Roth Around the grave in the rundown cemetery were a few of his former advertising colleagues from New York, who recalled his energy and originality and told his daughter, Nancy, what a pleasure it had been to work with him. There were also people who’d driven up from Starfish Beach, the residential retirement village at the Jersey Shore where he’d been living since Thanksgiving of 2001—the elderly to whom only recently he’d been giving art classes. [Read more] Season of Ice by Diane Les Becquets In the beginning there was snow. Torrents of tiny flakes blew in off the lake, pricked my skin before they melted on my hands and face and tongue. I live in Sebaticook, a small town in northern Maine on the shores of Moosehead Lake. I no longer think of that massive body as just water but rather a whale of sorts, a creature that I cannot tame and whose belly I cannot see. [Read more] Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky translated by Sandra Smith Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away. The first to hear the hum of the siren were those who couldn’t sleep—the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. To them it began as a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh. [Read More] Cut Off the Ears of Winter by Peter Covino Cut Off the Ears of Winter Cut off the ears of winter they have overheard too much, where incinerators burn, where rubble-strewn streets are covered in dust from the remodeling. Again, the doe-man in mauve cashmere— The nerve of him—in the never world (where ashes are harvested) where ashes rain down in glory, a jackpot of answers. Tonight, the underwriting of desire is an inky carbon copy. [Read more]

36 Views by Naomi Iizuka True story. This is a true story.   I’m in the middle of the Doi Larng mountain range, no-man’s land between Thailand and Myanmar— Burma, end of what they call the old Elephant Trail— Kipling country, used to be Now— Well, now it’s something else. [Read More] House of War by James Carroll A year after the Al Qaeda attack, at a rededication ceremony on September 11, 2002, much was made of the post-9/11 repairs having been completed in a mere twelve months. No one seemed to know that the entire Building had been constructed from start to finish in less than sixteen months. [Read more] The Selected Poems of Wang Wei translated by David Hinton Climbing to Subtle-Aware Monastery A bamboo path begins at the very beginning, wanders up past Chimera City to lotus peaks where windows look out across all of Ch’u and nine rivers run smooth above forests. Grasses cushion legs sitting ch’an stillness Up here. Towering pines echo pure chants. Inhabiting emptiness beyond dharma cloud, We see through human realms to unborn life. AUDIO & PHOTO GALLERY Listen to the event and view photos. >> More