The Award Tally
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PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

PEN America

An annual award given by PEN America recognizing distinguished biographies published in the previous year that exemplify skillful research and imaginative interpretation of a life story.

Search through 1,818 books

2026

  1. Baldwin: A Love Story

    Nicholas Boggs

    Won

2025

  1. Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball

    Keith O'Brien

    Won

2024

  1. The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life

    Clare Carlisle

    Won

2023

  1. Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm

    Dan Charnas

    Won

2022

  1. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler

    Rebecca Donner

    Won

2021

  1. Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World

    Amy Stanley

    Won

2020

  1. Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America

    Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

    Won

2019

  1. Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry

    Imani Perry

    Won

2018

  1. Richard Nixon: The Life

    John A. Farrell

    Won

2017

  1. Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary

    Joe Jackson

    Won

2016

  1. Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art

    Nancy Princenthal

    Won

2015

  1. The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court

    Anna Whitelock

    Won

2014

  1. Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore

    Linda Leavell

    Won

2013

  1. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

    Tom Reiss

    Won

  2. James Joyce:

    Gordon Bowker

    Shortlisted

2012

  1. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

    Robert K. Massie

    Won
  2. A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother

    Janny Scott

    Shortlisted

2011

  1. Cleopatra: A Life

    Stacy Schiff

    Won

2010

  1. Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic

    Michael Scammell

    Won

2009

  1. Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

    Richard Brody

    Won
  2. Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography

    Stanley Plumly

    Shortlisted
  3. Samuel Johnson: The Struggle

    Jeffrey Meyers

    Shortlisted

2008

  1. Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice

    Janet Malcolm

    Won