Seth Meyers Hosted the PEN America Literary Awards

At Monday’s night’s PEN America Literary Awards, a ceremony that would not just honor but bestow more than $330,000 worth of support to writers, Late Night host Seth Meyers was the first onstage to welcome guests. “I had this night described to me as the Oscars, but for books; but unlike the Oscars, you guys have a host,” Meyers joked with the audience, which was already enthralled by his charisma and wit. As a talk show host who has consistently shone a light on authors, inviting them onto his show as he does celebrities, Meyers has a long been a champion of the written word. So he was perfectly cast in his role as emcee.

Guests gussied up for the event, which had moved to Times Square’s Town Hall due to an increase of interest and need for more space. Speaking to the change, Meyers joked about the high request for tickets saying, “I’m not surprised that authors would want to be around people: You have the loneliest job in the world. I’m sure any time people say, ‘Would you like to be in the room with other authors, or any people of any kind?’ you jump at the opportunity, even when there’s a pandemic.”

After thoroughly warming up guests with a nonstop roll of belly laugh material, Meyers left the stage to make way for a night of musical performances by the Ulysses Owens Jr. New Century Big Band and Alicia Olatuja, as well as theatrical performances by Eisa Davis, Kerry Butler, and Andre Holland. There was also a poetry reading by author Rigoberto González and appearances by such literary honorees as playwright Tom Stoppard; poet, novelist, and essayist M. NourbeSe Philip; and playwright Tanya Barfield. Also attending were notables like Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baranski, Kenneth Lonergan, Min Jin Lee, Paul Muldoon, and more. The top award of the night, the PEN/Jean Stein Award for book of the year, which comes with a $75,000 prize, went to Yiyun Li for Where Reasons End.

Other award winners included Mimi Lok for Last of Her Name (Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection); Brandon Shimoda for The Grave on the Wall (PEN Open Book Award); Allison Markin Powell for her translation of The 10 Loves of Mr. Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami (PEN Translation Prize); Kristin Dykstra and Nancy Gates Madsen for the translation of The Winter Garden Photograph by Reina María Rodríguez (PEN Award for Poetry in Translation); Deborah Fleming for Resurrection of the Wild: Meditations on Ohio’s Natural Landscape (PEN/ Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay); Jacquelyn Dowd Hall for Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography); Liz Haedo for Pieles de Papel (PEN/Edward and Lily Tuck Award for Paraguayan Literature); and Frans de Waal for Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves (PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award).