A usual suspect

Philip Roth

For the third time, Philip Roth has received the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, for his novel, "Everyman." He won the $15,000 prize -- the biggest in U.S. letters -- previously for "Operation Shylock" in 1994 and "The Human Stain" in 2001. No other writer has won the prize more than twice. See the PEN/Faulkner Foundation announcement here.

The runners-up (who receive $5,000) were Deborah Eisenberg for "Twilight of the Superheroes," Charles D'Ambrosio for "The Dead Fish Museum," Amy Hempel for her "Collected Stories" and Edward P. Jones for "All Aunt Hagar's Children."

The PEN/Faukner is a big deal, but the size of the prize reminds us that the United States doesn't go in for big cash jackpots for literature. The Pulitzer Prize is $10,000, as is the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle includes a handshake and a certificate (the organization, strictly volunteer, has no endowment). Britain's Man Booker Prize, in contrast, has a cash award of 50,000 pounds (about $98,000). The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest in the English-speaking world, is 100,000 Euros (about $132,000).

With all of our billionaires, one would think there might be a generous American philanthropist -- a lover of literature -- or even a corporation, willing to fund a prize that would at least come close to British and Irish standards. How big would an endowment have to be to throw off enough income to support an annual prize of $50,000? How about the Anheuser-Busch Prize for fiction? It wouldn't have to be for a book about sports, beer, or Clydesdale horses.