WASHINGTON — Deborah Eisenberg has won the PEN-Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. The annual $5,000 prize is given in honor of Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) by the PEN-Faulkner Foundation based in Washington.
Eisenberg, a MacArthur “genius” who teaches creative writing at Columbia University in New York, is the author of six collections of short fiction, starting with “Transactions in a Foreign Currency,” published in 1986. Among the most celebrated writers in the country, she has won a Rea Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award and several O. Henry Awards. In 2011, her “Collected Stories” won the PEN-Faulkner Fiction Award.
“I’m really elated about this,” Eisenberg said in response to Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s almost uncanny to receive a prize named in honor of Bernard Malamud. I must have been in my early teens when (his book) ‘The Magic Barrel’ was published, and I first read it. I actually remember where I was sitting and the dizzying sensation when I reached the end of the title story, of lifting off into the air. I suppose it’s exactly the potential for that sensation that I most love about short fiction. Of course, the sensation is not part of the form itself, only the potential is. It’s very rare, but there are stories that make you feel — in the way that nothing else, except maybe some music, does — that you’ve been suddenly released from the law of gravity.”
In a statement Tuesday, Alan Cheuse, a judge for the PEN-Malamud award, wrote, “With every story, with every collection, she offers new ways of seeing and feeling, as if something were being perfected at the core. She’s one of the consummate story makers of our day.”
