Viet Thanh Nguyen to Receive 2025 KR Award for Literary Achievement
We are thrilled to announce that the2025 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement will be presented to Việt Thanh Nguyễn. This award honors careers of extraordinary literary achievement, recognizing individuals whose influence and importance have shaped the American literary landscape.
The Award will be given at a Gala on Friday, November 7, 2025 in The Mandarin Oriental in New York City.
Nguyễn’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was turned into an HBO limited series. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, his most recent books are A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial; To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other; and the edited volume The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora.
Proceeds from this annual gala support vital programming throughout the year, including scholarships for writers to attend The Kenyon Review’s celebrated residential and online workshops.
Celebrate Literature. Support Writers of All Ages.
Join us for an evening of community, conversation, and celebration to sustain the future of literary arts.
Why It Matters
Each year we rely on the generosity of our donors and longtime supporters to build a scholarship fund that supports adult and youth writing workshops. We are deeply committed to providing talented writers means to attend the workshop, and scholarships ensure that an international community of writers can travel to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio to join us. We believe that our diversity is a strength and bringing people together across racial, linguistic, religious and geographic aesthetic boundaries is an enormously empowering and rich opportunity. Last year’s Gala raised $236,000 in scholarship funds, which made it possible for 212 writers to participate in residential and online generative writing workshops.
Every gift makes an impact.
About Our Workshops
Unlike other writing workshops, the Kenyon Review Writing Workshops focus on the creation of new work within the space of the workshop itself. Through prompts, close readings and exercises, the workshop is designed to challenge writers to exceed their own expectations. Other workshops emphasize the role of critique and are structured to finalize texts. Kenyon Review workshops create a space of discovery and inspiration.
Since 1995, KR workshops have provided thousands of writers with a space to take creative risks and push their writing to the next level. The low student-teacher ratio and supportive, rigorous, and immersive writing community offer a singular, transformative experience to which many students return again and again.
Event Details
- Date: Friday, November 7, 2025
- Time: 6:30-9:00PM
- Location: The Mandarin Oriental, 80 Columbus Circle, New York, 10023
- Dress Code: Business Attire
Fundraising Goals
This year, we aim to raise $230,000. All donations will be used to fund scholarships for residential and online programming for young and adult writers.
Join us in defending the future of literature—keep the Kenyon Review in the heart of it, where it has been since 1939.