New Novelist Wins Faulkner

David Guterson has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his first novel, “Snow Falling on Cedars” (Harcourt Brace).

The judges considered 300 novels and short-story collections published in the United States in 1994 before awarding Guterson the $15,000 prize.

Inspired by “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Guterson’s novel centers on the trial of a Japanese American fisherman accused of murder.

Four other nominees each will receive $5,000 prizes: Joyce Carol Oates for her novel, “What I Lived For” (Dutton/William Abraham); Ursula Hegi for “Stones From the River” (Poseiden); Frederick Busch for “The Children in the Woods: New and Selected Stories” (Ticknor & Fields), and Joanna Scott for “Various Antidotes: Stories” (Henry Holt & Co.).

The awards will be presented in Washington on May 13.