ANDOVER, Mass. — The Caprices, by Sabina Murray, Phillips Academy writer-in-residence on the Roger F. Murray Teaching Foundation, has won the 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s largest peer-juried prize for fiction. Past winners of this award include E.L. Doctorow, E. Annie Proulx, Michael Cunningham, Ha Jin and Philip Roth. The announcement of Murray's award was made Tuesday, April 8, by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

The Caprices (Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Company) is a collection of stories set against the backdrop of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Murray recalls her family stories of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and writes a history told through individual lives in stories that follow the reach of the United States into the heart of Asia and the pieces of war brought back through memory. The judges considered over 350 novels and short story collections published in the U.S. during 2002. As the winner, Murray will receive $15,000 and will be honored during the 23rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony May 17 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

Murray, who holds a B.A. degree from Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts and an M.A. degree from the University of Texas, came to Andover in 2000 as writer-in-residence on the Roger F. Murray Teaching Foundation. She also teaches classes in creative fiction and creative poetry. She also has worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the novel Slow Burn.