# Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize

The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is a literary award presented annually for the "best book-length work of prose fiction" by an American woman. The award has been given by the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester since 1975.
Each winner is awarded $15,000.
The prize is named for a 30-year-old editor killed in an auto accident. Family, friends, and associates in the publishing industry endowed the prize as a memorial to Kafka and "the literary standards and personal ideals for which she stood".

## Winners

| Year of Work | Recipient | Title of Work | Publisher |
| 1975 | Jessamyn West | The Massacre at Fall Creek | Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich |
| 1976 | Judith Guest | Ordinary People | Viking Press |
| 1977 | Toni Morrison | Song of Solomon | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1978 | Mary Gordon | Final Payments | Random House |
| 1979 | Barbara Chase-Riboud | Sally Hemings | Viking Press |
| 1980 | Anne Tyler | Morgan's Passing | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1981 | Mary Gordon | The Company of Women | Random House |
| 1982 | Mary Lee Settle | The Killing Ground | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1983 | Joan Chase | During the Reign of the Queen of Persia | Harper & Row |
| 1984 | Rosellen Brown | Civil Wars | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1985 | Ursula K. Le Guin | Always Coming Home | Harper & Row |
| 1986 | Hortense Calisher | The Bobby Soxer | Doubleday |
| 1987 | Gail Godwin | A Southern Family | William Morrow and Company |
| 1988 | Kathryn Davis | Labrador | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1989 | Marianne Wiggins | John Dollar | Harper & Row |
| 1990 | Valerie Martin | Mary Reilly | Doubleday |
| 1990 | Karen Tei Yamashita | Through the Arc of the Rain Forest | Coffee House Press |
| 1993 | Sherri Szeman | The Kommandant’s Mistress | HarperCollins |
| 1994 | Ann Patchett | Taft | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 1995 | Melissa Pritchard | The Instinct for Bliss | Zoland Books |
| 1996 | Kathleen Cambor | The Book of Mercy | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1997 | Cristina García | The Agüero Sisters | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1998 | Nicole Mones | Lost in Translation | Dell Publishing |
| 1999 | Susan Hubbard | Blue Money | University of Missouri Press |
| 2000 | Carrie Brown | The Hatbox Baby | Workman Publishing Company |
| 2001 | Edie Meidav | The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2002 | Joyce Hackett | Disturbance of the Inner Ear | Carroll & Graf |
| 2003 | Kate Moses | Wintering | St. Martin's Press |
| 2004 | Sarah Shun-lien Bynum | Madeleine Is Sleeping | Harcourt |
| 2005 | Jill Ciment | The Tattoo Artist | Pantheon Books |
| 2006 | Nell Freudenberger | The Dissident | Ecco Press |
| 2007 | Miranda Beverly-Whittemore | Set Me Free | Warner Books |
| 2008 | Saher Alam | The Groom to Have Been | Spiegel & Grau |
| 2009 | Isla Morley | Come Sunday | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2010 | Linda LeGarde Grover | The Dance Boots | University of Georgia Press |
| 2011 | Amy Waldman | The Submission | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2012 | Anna Keesey | Little Century | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2013 | Ru Freeman | On Sal Mal Lane | Graywolf Press |
| 2014 | Jacinda Townsend | Saint Monkey | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2015 | Mia Alvar | In the Country | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2016 | Elizabeth Poliner | As Close to Us as Breathing | Lee Boudreaux Books |
| 2017 | Marian Crotty | What Counts as Love | University of Iowa Press |
| 2018 | Tiffany Quay Tyson | The Past Is Never | Simon & Schuster |
| 2019 | Margaret Wilkerson Sexton | The Revisioners | Counterpoint |
| 2020 | Danielle Evans | The Office of Historical Corrections | Riverhead Books |
| 2021 | Rebecca Sacks | City of a Thousand Gates | HarperCollins |
| 2022 | Claire Stanford | Happy for You | Viking Press |