This week, eight writers from seven countries received a phone call of a lifetime, in which they were informed that they’d won a prize accompanied by an unrestricted grant of $165,000.

The late Donald Windham established this lavish prize in 2013 in memory of his partner, Sandy Campbell—the annual Windham-Campbell Prizes at Yale University—“to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.” Categories for the prize include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

This year’s winners of the Prize include, for fiction, André Alexis of Canada/Trinidad and Tobago and Erna Bordber of Jamica; for nonfiction, Maya Jasanoff of the United States and Ashleigh Young of New Zealand; for drama, Marina Carr of Ireland and Ike Holter of the United States; and for poetry, Carolyn Forché of the United States and Ali Cobby Eckermann, of Australia.

The winners will officially accept their awards during a ceremony at the Windham-Campbell Festival, which will take place from September 13–15, 2017 at Yale. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Past recipients of the Windham Campbell Prizes include Hilton Als, Teju Cole, Stanley Crouch, Tessa Hadley, and James Salter, among others.