The Beloved Republic Longlisted for PEN America Award

We're ever so proud to share the news that Steven Harvey's acclaimed essay collection, The Beloved Republic, was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, The annual award honors a seasoned writer whose collection of essays is an expansion on their corpus of work.

Harvey's fourth essay collection, the scope of The Beloved Republic is wide. Essays examine inherent bias toward Trayvon Martin, explicit racism at the Charlottesville rally, the commercialization of the Great American Eclipse, and the cruelty of authoritarianism. One essay creates a collage of scenes from the struggles for civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and international peace and ponders whether the arc of the universe is moral. In a second section, the essays take on solitary experiences including the secular spirituality of a mountaintop vision, the acceptance of death in world without heaven, the solace that personal essays can bring to readers and writers, and the bittersweet rediscovery of a mother's love fifty years after her suicide. Taken together these essays position themselves along the sharp edges of human experience where self, world, and words almost align-the bedrock of the personal essay.

Congratulations to Steven Harvey for this recognition of his important work! And congratulations to winner Jill Lepore for her collection, The Deadline.