Cormac McCarthy's writing has been compared to that of American greats such as William Faulkner and Philip Roth. (Derek Shapton/Knopf/Associated Press)

Cormac McCarthy, the American writer of The Road and No Country for Old Men, has won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for lifetime achievement in American literature.

The $25,000 US award was announced by the PEN American centre, the U.S. chapter of the international organization that fights for freedom to write.

It is the second year PEN has given the award, which recognizes excellence, ambition and scale of achievement over a sustained career.

McCarthy won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for his apocalyptic novel The Road, and his work No Country for Old Men was made into an Oscar-winning movie.

Born in Rhode Island in 1933, he published his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965. He also wrote Blood Meridian, The Crossing and All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award.

Known for his biblical style and life or death themes, he is often compared to some of the finest American writers, including William Faulkner and Philip Roth.

PEN announced several other literary prizes on Tuesday:

• The Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, won by Michael Henry Heim, who has translated novels by Milan Kundera, Danilo Kis, Karel Kapek, Guenter Grass, Peter Esterhazy and George Konrad.
• The Robert Bingham Fellowship ($35,000) for a debut fiction writer, won by Donald Ray Pollack for his collection Knockemstiff.
• The Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($10,000) to Richard Brody for Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard.
• The John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000) to Steve Coll for The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century .
• The Laura Pels Foundation Awards for Drama to Sam Shepard, the playwright who penned Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind. A mid-career award went to Nilo Cruz, whose works include Anna in the Tropics, Beauty of the Father, Lorca in a Green Dress and A Park in Our House.
• The Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship ($5,000) to Carol Lynch Williams, author of the forthcoming A Glimpse Is All I Can Stand.
• The PEN Translation Prize ($3,000) to Natasha Wimmer for her translation from the Spanish of Roberto Bolano's 2666.
• The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000) to Marilyn Hacker for her translation from the French of King of a Hundred Horsemen by Marie Étienne.

PEN also recognizes excellence in short fiction with the O. Henry Prizes, with 20 awarded annually.

This year's winners are Graham Joyce, Kristen Sundberg Lunstrum, E. V. Slate, John Burnside, Mohan Sikka, L.E. Miller, Alistair Morgan, Roger Nash, Manuel Munoz, Caitlin Horrocks, Ha Jin, Paul Theroux, Judy Troy, Nadine Gordimer, Viet Dinh, Karen Brown, Marisa Silver, Paul Yoon, Andrew Sean Greer and Junot Diaz.