2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

2005 Europe Central by William T. Vollmann

2004 The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck

2003 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

2002 Three Junes by Julia Glass

2001 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

2000 In America by Susan Sontag

1999 Waiting by Ha Jin

1998 Charming Billy by Alice McDermott

1997 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett

1995 Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth

1994 A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis

1993 The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

1991 Mating by Norman Rush

1990 The Middle Passage by Charles Richard Johnson

1989 Spartina by John Casey

1988 Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

1987 Paco’s Story by Larry Heinemann

1986 World’s Fair by E. L. Doctorow

1985 White Noise by Don Delillo

1984 Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist

1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker

1983 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty

1982 Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike

1981 Plains Song, for Female Voices by Wright Morris

1980 Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

1979 Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien

1978 Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle

1977 The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner

1976 J R by William Gaddis

1975 Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

1975 The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams

1974 Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

1974 A Crown of Feathers, and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

1973 Chimera by John Barth

1973 Augustus by John Edward Williams

1972 The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

1971 Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow

1970 Them by Joyce Carol Oates

1969 Steps by Jerzy Kosinski

1968 The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder

1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud

1966 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

1965 Herzog by Saul Bellow

1964 The Centaur by John Updike

1963 Morte d’Urban by J. F. Powers

1962 The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

1961 The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter

1960 Goodbye, Columbus and five short stories by Philip Roth

1959 The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud

1958 The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever

1957 The Field of Vision by Wright Morris

1956 Ten North Frederick by John O’Hara

1955 A Fable by William Faulkner

1954 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

1953 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

1952 From Here to Eternity by James Jones

1951 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner

1950 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren