Tamron Hall Hosts PEN America Literary Awards Honoring 13 Authors and Translators

Tamron Hall is giving some special kudos to a select group of literary minds.

The Emmy Award-winning journalist, author and talk show host, 54, hosted the PEN America Literary Awards on Thursday, May 8, cheekily dubbed “the Oscars for Books.”

To open up the ceremony, Hall delivered a powerful monologue, noting, “It’s frankly shocking sometimes to see so many leaders advocate to ban certain pieces of literature they don’t agree with. Especially that one piece of literature, the Constitution — you may have heard of it.”

“Many threats to free expression these days come from something deeper than government overreach,” she continued. “They come from people’s growing disconnect from free speech as a personal value, and from perhaps our unwillingness to engage respectfully with those who we might disagree with. The fight for free expression never ceases. It is always, as we know, under attack.”

Though Hall is known for her successes on television and beyond, she has earned a place at the table of literary minds as well. Her first children’s book, Harlem Honey, became a New York Times bestseller this March.

Kali Nicole Gross took home the PEN Open Book Award, which is bestowed upon an “exceptional book-length work of any literary genre by an author of color,” for her book Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless Times.

Ana Raquel Minian accepted the PEN John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction for In the Shadow of Liberty: The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention in the United States.

Frank X Walker, the author of Load in Nine Times: Poems, took home the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection for his book that challenges conventional notions of Appalachia.

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Dagoberto Gilb, who explores the vitality of Mexican culture in the American Southwest through A Passing West: Essays from the Borderlands, took home the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jason Roberts was the recipient of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life.

It was a big night for debuts, as well, with Michael Deagler taking home the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and Amy Stuber taking home the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection for her debut Sad Grownups.

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Three writers were also honored in particular for their “significant contributions to literature and culture.” Lebanese American playwright Mona Mansour took home the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, Mozambican author Mia Couto won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature and Charles H. Rowell was awarded the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing.

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, who serves as the co-CEO of PEN America, said in a press release that the event embodies “the mission that both ignites and unites us at PEN America: our mandate to uplift all writers, across backgrounds, genres and forms. The writers who experiment boldly, and who speak truth to power. Our nominees this year are all exceptional and absolutely deserving of recognition and celebration for their outstanding work.”

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Beyond the aforementioned honorees, the PEN ceremony paid homage to roughly two dozen other literary contributors, with 12 authors receiving the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers for $2,000 each, and an additional 16 authors and translators receiving grants on behalf of the organization.