- 1950 Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm
- 1951 William Faulkner, The Collected Stories
- 1952 James Jones, From Here to Eternity
- 1953 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
- 1954 Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
- 1955 William Faulkner, A Fable
- 1956 John O'Hara, Ten North Frederick
- 1957 Wright Morris, The Field of Vision
- 1958 John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
- 1959 Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel
- 1960 Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus
- 1961 Conrad Richter, The Waters of Kronos
- 1962 Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
- 1963 J. F. Powers, Morte D'Urban
- 1964 John Updike, The Centaur
- 1965 Saul Bellow, Herzog
- 1966 Katherine Anne Porter, The Collected Stories
- 1967 Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
- 1968 Thornton Wilder, The Eighth Day
- 1969 Jerzy Kosinski, Steps
- 1970 Joyce Carol Oates, Them
- 1971 Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
- 1972 Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories
- 1973 John Barth, Chimera
- 1973 John Williams, Augustus
- 1974 Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Crown of Feathers...
- 1974 Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
- 1975 Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers
- 1975 Thomas Williams, The Hair of Harold Roux
- 1976 William Gaddis, JR
- 1977 Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird
- 1978 Mary Lee Settle, Blood Tie
- 1979 Tim O'Brien, Going after Cacciato
- 1980 William Styron, Sophie's Choice
- 1981 Wright Morris, Plain Song
- 1982 John Updike, Rabbit is Rich
- 1983 Alice Walker, The Color Purple
- 1983 Eudora Welty, The Collected Stories
| - 1984 Ellen Gilchrist, Victory over Japan
- 1985 Don DeLillo, White Noise
- 1986 E.L. Doctorow, World's Fair
- 1987 Larry Heinemann, Paco's Story
- 1988 Pete Dexter, Paris Trout
- 1989 John Casey, Spartina
- 1990 Charles Johnson, Middle Passage
- 1991 Norman Rush, Mating
- 1992 Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
- 1993 E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
- 1994 William Gaddis, A Frolic of his Own
- 1995 Philip Roth, Sabbath's Theater
- 1996 Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever and Other Stories
- 1997 Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
- 1998 Alice McDermott, Charming Billy
- 1999 Ha Jin, Waiting
- 2000 Susan Sontag, In America
- 2001 Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
- 2002 Julia Glass, Three Junes
- 2003 Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
- 2004 Lily Tuck, The News from Paraguay
- 2005 William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
- 2006 Richard Powers, The Echo Maker
- 2007 Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke
- 2008 Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
- 2009 Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin
- 2010 Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
- 2011 Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
- 2012 Louise Eldrich, The Round House
- 2013 James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
- 2014 Phil Klay, Redeployment
- 2015 Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles
- 2016 Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
- 2017 Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
- 2018 Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
- 2019 Susan Choi, Trust Exercise
- 2022 Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch
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