Salvatore Scibona (born 1975) is an American novelist. He has won awards for his novels as well as short stories, and was selected in 2010 as one of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'''s "20 under 40: Fiction Writers to Watch". His work has been published in ten languages. In 2021 he was awarded the $200,000 Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

for his novel ''The Volunteer.'' In its citation the academy wrote, "Salvatore Scibona's work is grand, tragic, epic. His novel ''The Volunteer,'' about war, masculinity, abandonment, and grimly executed grace, is an intricate masterpiece of plot, scene, and troubled character. In language both meticulous and extravagant, Scibona brings to the American novel a mythic fury, a fresh greatness."

Early life and education

Salvatore Scibona was born in 1975 in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. He graduated from St. John's College in 1997 and published an essay about his experience there in ''

''. Scibona earned an M.F.A. in 1999 at the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

. The following year he was awarded a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

, using it to travel to Italy for research for his first novel, published as ''The End'' (2008), which was a finalist for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

and winner of the

Young Lions Fiction Award The Young Lions Fiction Award is an annual US literary prize of $10,000, awarded to a writer who is 35 years old or younger for a novel or collection of short stories. The award was established in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick ...

Career

Scibona has written novels, essays, and short stories, the last published in ''

The Threepenny Review ''The Threepenny Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California, by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule (March, June, September, December), it offers fiction, memoirs ...

'', ''Best New American Voices 2004'', ''The Pushcart Book of Short Stories: The Best Stories from a Quarter-Century of the Pushcart Prize'', ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

'', and ''

.'' His work has been recognized by major awards including the Whiting Writers Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship. He was named one of the "20 under 40" writers by ''

'' in 2010. From 2004 through 2013 he administered the writing fellowship at the

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise that supports emerging visual artists and writers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Work Center was founded in 1968 by a group of American artists and writers to support promising individual ...

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Provi ...

. From 2013 to 2016, he taught at Wesleyan University. Since 2017, he has directed the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Awards

Literary awards

Honors

*2000

*2010 ''

'''s "20 under 40: Fiction Writers to Watch" * 2010

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

* 2021 Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award

Works

Novels

* *

Short stories

* * * * *

Essays

* *

Anthologies

* * *

References

External links

Profile at The Whiting FoundationInterview: "Salvatore Scibona Brings Us to The End"
''Meeting House: A Journal of New England Literature and Arts'', 28 Jul 2008

Graywolf Press
"Interview with Salvatore Scibona, ''The End''"
''Fiction Writers Review''
Antonio Pagliaro interviews Salvatore Scibona (in Italian)
''21 arte cultura società magazine, 2011'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Scibona, Salvatore 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Novelists from Ohio Novelists from Massachusetts Living people 1975 births St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni 21st-century American male writers