Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize
The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is annually awarded for fiction by an American woman.
The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester have awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction by an American woman since 1975.
Each winner is awarded $7,500.[1]
The prize is named for a 30-year-old editor killed in an auto accident. Family, friends, and associates in the publishing industry endowed the prize as a memorial to Kafka and "the literary standards and personal ideals for which she stood".
The prize is not associated with the similarly named Franz Kafka Prize.
Winners
The year listed is the year the winner's book was published. The award is given during the following year.
- 1975: Jessamyn West, The Massacre at Fall Creek, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
- 1976: Judith Guest, Ordinary People, Viking Press
- 1977: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Alfred A. Knopf
- 1978: Mary Gordon, Final Payments, Random House
- 1979: Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sally Hemings, Viking Press
- 1980: Anne Tyler, Morgan’s Passing, Alfred A. Knopf
- 1981: Mary Gordon, The Company of Women, Random House
- 1982: Mary Lee Settle, The Killing Ground, Farrer, Straus & Giroux
- 1983: Joan Chase, During the Reign of the Queen of Persia, Harper & Row
- 1984: Rosellen Brown, Civil Wars, Alfred A. Knopf
- 1985: Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home, Harper & Row
- 1986: Hortense Calisher, The Bobby Soxer, Doubleday & Company
- 1987: Gail Godwin, A Southern Family, Wm. Morrow & Company
- 1988: Kathryn Davis, Labrador, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- 1989: Marianne Wiggins, John Dollar, Harper & Row
- 1990: Valerie Martin, Mary Reilly, Doubleday & Company.
- 1990: Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Coffee House Press
- 1993: Sherri Szeman, The Kommandant’s Mistress, Harper Collins
- 1994: Ann Patchett, Taft, Houghton Mifflin Company
- 1995: Melissa Pritchard, The Instinct for Bliss, Zoland Books
- 1996: Kathleen Cambor, The Book of Mercy, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- 1997: Cristina García, The Agüero Sisters, Alfred A. Knopf
- 1998: Nicole Mones, Lost in Translation, Delacorte Press
- 1999: Susan Hubbard, Blue Money, University of Missouri Press
- 2000: Carrie Brown, The Hatbox Baby, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
- 2001: Edie Meidav, The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon, Houghton Mifflin Company
- 2002: Joyce Hackett, Disturbance of the Inner Ear, Carroll & Graf
- 2003: Kate Moses, Wintering, St. Martin's Press
- 2004: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping, Harcourt, Inc.
- 2005: Jill Ciment, The Tattoo Artist, Pantheon Books
- 2006: Nell Freudenberger, The Dissident, Ecco
- 2007: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Set Me Free, Warner Books
- 2008: Saher Alam, The Groom to Have Been, Spiegel & Grau
- 2009: Isla Morley, Come Sunday, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- 2010: Linda LeGarde Grover, The Dance Boots, University of Georgia Press
- 2011: Amy Waldman, The Submission, Farrar, Straus, Giroux
- 2012: Anna Keesey, Little Century, Farrar, Straus, Giroux
- 2013: Ru Freeman, On Sal Mal Lane, Graywolf Press
- 2014: Jacinda Townsend, Saint Monkey, W.W. Norton and Company
- 2015: Mia Alvar, In the Country, Alfred A. Knopf
- 2016: Elizabeth Poliner, As Close to Us as Breathing, Lee Boudreaux