“I’m headed for China for six months, and I plan to come back with plenty of material,” Jen said. “[The award] is extremely fortuitous.”

Notable authors John H. Updike ’54, Don DeLillo, Cynthia Ozick and Joyce Carol Oates were on the committee that decided who would receive the award.

Jen said that she was overwhelmed by the committee’s prestige.

“These are all people whom I have looked up to since I was 14, whose shoes I aspire to fill,” Jen said. “But you never imagine that you could come to their attention much less meet with their approval.”

Menendez said she thinks that Jen will do a great service to society.

“It’s undoubtedly a tremendous loss for Harvard,” she said. “But in the larger scheme we are lucky to have an intellectual human being out there writing social commentary. It’s where she can make the largest contribution.”

The Strauff Livings award is given every five years to two writers. Claire Messud, a short fiction writer who has taught at Amherst College, was the other recent award winner.

Past winners include John Casey, Joy Williams and Raymond Carver.

—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.