Featured story
Mahreen Sohail MFA ’13 Wins PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction
Small Scale Sinners, the debut collection of stories by Mahreen Sohail MFA ’13, has won the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction. Born in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sohail studied fiction in the College’s graduate program in writing as a Fulbright Scholar.
“With sharp and striking prose, Small Scale Sinners performs the magical feat of encompassing every aspect of humanity in a slim volume of stories, which reveals the hearty landscape of desire, rage, love, and loss contained in nearly every life,” said PEN/Faulkner Awards Committee chair Lauren Francis-Sharma in announcing the award.
With this honor, Sohail joins a distinguished group of Sarah Lawrence alumni and faculty recognized by the PEN/Faulkner Awards over the years, including winners Ann Patchett ’85 and Joan Silber ’67 and finalist Carolyn Ferrell ’84, among others.