The
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the
PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. Finalists read from their works at the presentation ceremony in the Great Hall of the
Folger Shakespeare Library in
Washington, D.C.. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country." The award was first given in 1981.