Author must be an American citizen. Books cannot be submitted for this but are selected by a panel.

1950     Nelson Algren         The Man with the Golden Arm

1951     William Faulkner     Collected Stories

1952     James Jones          From Here to Eternity

1953     Ralph Ellison           Invisible Man

1954     Saul Bellow             The Adventures of Augie March

1955     John O'Hara           Ten North Frederick

1956     No award

1957     Wright Morris          Field of Vision

1958     John Cheever         The Wapshot Chronicle

1959     Bernard Malamud   The Magic Barrel

1960     Philip Roth               Goodbye, Columbus

1961     Conrad Richter        The Waters of Kronos

1962     Walker Percy          The Moviegoer

1963     J. F. Powers             Morte d'Urban

1964     John Updike             The Centaur

1965     Saul Bellow               Herzog

1966     Katherine Ann Porter The Collected Stories

1967     Bernard Malamud     The Fixer

1968     Thornton Wilder        The Eighth Day

1969     Jerzy Kosinski           Steps

1970     Joyce Carol Oates    Them

1971     Saul Bellow                 Mr Sammler's Planet

1972     Flannery O'Connor    The Complete Stories

1973     John Barth                  Chimera

1974     Thomas Pynchon       Gravity's Rainbow

1974     Isaac Bashevis Singer A Crown of Feathers

1975     Robert Stone                Dog Soldiers

1975     Thomas Williams        The Hair of Harold Roux

1976     William Gaddis            J. R.

1977     Wallace Stegner         The Spectator Bird

1978     Mary Lee Settle           Blood Ties

1979     Tim O'Brien                 Going After Cacciato

1980     William Styron             Sophie's Choice

1981     Wright Morris               Plains Song

1982     John Updike                 Rabbit Is Rich

1983     Alice Walker                The Color Purple

1984     Ellen Gilchrist               Victory Over Japan

1985     Don DeLillo                   White Noise

1986     E. L. Doctorow              World's Fair

1987     Larry Heinemann          Paco's Story

1988     Pete Dexter                   Paris Trout

1989     John Casey                  Spartina

1990     Charles Johnson          Middle Passage

1991     Norman Rush               Mating

1992     Cormac McCarthy       All the Pretty Horses

1993     E. Annie Proulx            The Shipping News

1994     William Gaddis             A Frolic of His Own

1995     Philip Roth                    Sabbath's Theater

1996     Andrea Barrett              Ship Fever and Other Stories

1997     Charles Frazier             Cold Mountain

1998     Alice McDermott          Charming Billy