Acclaimed short story writer and novelist, George Saunders, will be awarded the 2025 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL) on November 19, 2025. The award will be presented at the 76th National Book Awards.
Per the National Book Foundation: "Saunders is the 38th recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which was created in 1988 to recognize a lifetime of literary achievement. Previous recipients include Walter Mosley, Edmund White, Isabel Allende, Robert A. Caro, John Ashbery, Ursula K. Le Guin, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, Karen Tei Yamashita, Art Spiegelman, Rita Dove, and most recently, Barbara Kingsolver."
Saunders is by no means new to awards and honors such as this. He's a New York Times bestseller, winner of the Booker Prize, and a MacArthur Fellow. Despite his numerous accomplishments I can't help but be happy when he wins yet another award. His writing is that superb; it is both the most humorous and most human I have encountered. Couple that with absurd premises taken seriously and executed to perfection and you've got a giant of American letters and one of my favorite authors.
While you'll find his works most often shelved in literary fiction his stories have broad appeal and are often speculative fiction, tending toward science fiction. My favorite story of his "Sea Oak" contains, among other things, a zombie grandma with telekinetic powers. If you'd like to check out his work I recommend beginning with his collection Pastoralia.
About George Saunders
George Saunders is the author of 13 books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Booker Prize; five collections of stories including Tenth of December, a Finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the inaugural Folio Prize, and Liberation Day. He is the host of the popular Substack blog, Story Club, an outgrowth of his book on the Russian short story A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine. Since 1996, he has taught creative writing at Syracuse University. His new novel, Vigil, is forthcoming.
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