Professor receives nomination for prestigious writing award

Steve Yarbrough is one of five in country; past winners include Michael Cunningham, Philip Roth

By REBECCA MARTIN

Fresno State English professor Steve Yarbrough is nominated for a prestigious fiction writing award, one of only five individuals to be nominated in the United States.

Yarbrough is nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his novel “Prisoners of War,” a novel about a group of World War II German POWs working on Mississippi farms as day laborers.

The nomination, Yarbrough said, is a nice surprise, and he said he admires the other nominees.
“I remember being a student, and reading Marilyn Robinson,” Yarbrough said, referring to another nominee selected for her piece, “Gilead.” “It makes you feel kind of extraordinary.”

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is “America’s largest peer-juried fiction prize,” according to www.penfaulkner.org.

The first award was given in 1981. Since then, winning fiction pieces have included “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham and “The Human Stain” by Philip Roth.

The winner of the award will be announced in April in a ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library on May 14.

Assistant chair of the English department Lisa Weston said Yarbrough’s award nomination is a huge accomplishment.

“Oh yeah, it’s a biggie,” Weston said. “You look at the list of nominees, and it’s just like, ‘wow.’ ”

Yarbrough is deserving of the nomination, Weston said, because of his great insight into how his characters feel. He also has a good eye and ear for setting in his works, Weston said.

Yarbrough’s teaching is of high caliber, just like his writing, Weston said.

“He’s active in the department and a very giving teacher,” Weston said. “His students think very highly of him.”

Yarbrough said it is his love of writing that helps him teach and reach students.

“There’s no way to teach without being a practitioner of the art,” Yarbrough said. “It’s all part of the same enterprise. I couldn’t be a teacher without writing.”

Other nominees for the award include Jerome Charyn for “The Green Lantern,” Edwidge Danticat for “The Dew Breaker,” and Ha Jin for “War Trash.”

Yarbrough called Jin “one of the greatest American writers.”

“Prisoners of War” has similarities to Yarbrough’s own childhood and life experiences, he said, which were the inspiration for the work. A native of Mississippi, Yarbrough is from the same area where his novel is set in.

“There was a war camp in my hometown in [World War II],” Yarbrough said. “My father was similar to the main character. I knew I would make a novel out of it someday.”

With the added interest Yarbrough’s nomination has given Fresno State, Weston hopes the school will drew new attention.

“It seems that athletics are always being covered,” Weston said. “Anything that gives publicity to the school more than, ‘So that’s what goes on at the place across from the football stadium,’ is great.”