Since 1976, the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English at the University of Rochester have awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction by an American woman. The idea for the prize came out of the personal grief of the friends and family of a fine young editor who was killed in an automobile accident just as her career was beginning to achieve its promise of excellence. She was 30 years old, and those who knew her believed she would do much to further the causes of literature and women. Her family, her friends, and her professional associates in the publishing industry created the endowment from which the prize is bestowed, in memory of Janet Heidinger Kafka and the literary standards and personal ideals for which she stood.
Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction WInners
2008: Saher Alam, The Groom to Have Been
2006: Jill Ciment, The Tattoo Artist
2004: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeliene Is Sleeping, Harcourt, Inc.
2003: Kate Moses, Wintering, St. Martin's Press
2002: Joyce Hackett, Disturbance of the Inner Ear, Carroll & Graf
2001: Edie Meidav, The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon, Houghton Mifflin Company
2000: Carrie Brown, The Hatbox Baby, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
1999: Susan Hubbard, Blue Money, University of Missouri Press
1998: Nicole Mones, Lost in Translation, Delacorte Press
1997: Cristina García, The Agüero Sisters, Alfred A. Knopf
1996: Kathleen Cambor, The Book of Mercy, Farrar, Straus & GirouxHous
1995: Melissa Pritchard, The Instinct for Bliss, Zoland Books Press
1994: Ann Patchett, Taft, Houghton Mifflin Company
1993: Sherri Szeman, The Kommandant’s Mistress, Harper Collins
1990: Valerie Martin, Mary Reilly, Doubleday & Company.
1990: Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Coffee
1989: Marianne Wiggins, John Dollar, Harper & Row
1988: Kathryn Davis, Labrador, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
1987: Gail Godwin, A Southern Family, Wm. Morrow & Company
1986: Hortense Calisher, The Bobby Soxer, Doubleday & Company
1985: Ursula LeGuin, Always Coming Home, Harper & Row
1984: Rosellen Brown, Civil Wars, Alfred A. Knopf
1983: Joan Chase, During the Reign of the Queen of Persia, Harper & Row
1982: Mary Lee Settle, The Killing Ground, Farrer, Straus & Giroux
1981: Mary Gordon, The Company of Women, Random House
1980: Anne Tyler, Morgan’s Passing, Alfred A. Knopf
1979: Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sally Hemings, Viking Press
1978: Mary Gordon, Final Payments, Random House
1977: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Alfred A. Knopf
1976: Judith Guest, Ordinary People, Viking Press
1975: Jessamyn West, The Massacre at Fall Creek, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
