The prize is awarded for a distinguished work of scholarship in twentieth- or twenty-first-century literature and thought.
The prize is usually given to a first or second work published by an entrant.
The prize has been established in honor of Matei Calinescu, a Romanian poet and scholar who taught at Indiana University, Bloomington.
[1] Past winners of the prize include:[2] 2014–15 Paul K. Saint-Amour, University of Pennsylvania, for Tense Future: Modernism, Total War, Encyclopedic Form (Oxford Univ.
Press, 2015) Honorable mention: Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, for Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (Columbia Univ.