Recently in Award Category

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- The 60th annual National Book Awards was a night to celebrate literature and to wonder about its future.

Lifetime achievement winner Gore Vidal envisioned only pulp and dust Wednesday as he contemplated the state of books, while fellow honorary winner Dave Eggers declared that we live in a golden age. The evening's host, Andy Borowitz, joked that the meaning of publishing was "a lot of hard work. Then nothing."

As the e-book march advances, both Eggers and fiction winner Colum McCann insisted that paper texts were stronger than ever. McCann won the fiction prize for "Let the Great World Spin," a novel about daring, luck and mortality in the pre-digital world of 1970s New York.

From the Associated Press:

TORONTO -- Linden MacIntyre, an investigative journalist who wrote a novel about sexual abuse by Catholic priests, has won one of Canada's most prestigious literary awards.

MacIntyre won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his book "The Bishop's Man" on Tuesday night.

The Associated Press reports:

Ten emerging writers, their home countries ranging from Vietnam to the United States, each have received a $50,000 prize.
The Whiting Writers' Awards, given annually for "exceptional talent and promise in early career," were announced Oct. 28. The recipients included fiction writer Vu Tran, born in Vietnam and now living in Las Vegas, and poet Jay Hopler, a native of Puerto Rico who lives in Tampa, Fla.
The other winners were poets Jericho Brown and Joan Kane, playwright Rajiv Joseph, nonfiction authors Michael Meyer and Hugh Raffles, and fiction writers Adam Johnson, Nami Mun and Salvatore Scibona, whose novel "The End" was a National Book Award finalist in 2008.
The awards, presented by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, were founded in 1985. Previous winners include such Pulitzer Prize winners as Jeffrey Eugenides, Michael Cunningham and Jorie Graham.

From the Associated Press:

MADRID -- Spanish writer and journalist Angeles Caso has won the country's most lucrative literary award for a novel about the ordeals of women from poor countries who emigrate in search of a better life.

Just in from the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Tycoons, evolution and the environment are among the subjects of this year's National Book Award nominees.

Marcel Theroux's global warming novel "Far North" and T.J. Stiles' "The First Tycoon," a biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, were some the finalists announced Wednesday. Two books about evolution, including a story for young people about Charles Darwin, were also nominated.

Winners in the four competitive categories of the National Book Awards will be announced at a Nov. 18 ceremony in New York.

From the Associated Press:

STOCKHOLM -- Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, honored for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed."

The 56-year-old author, who emigrated to Germany from then-communist Romania in 1987, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled "Niederungen," which was promptly censored by the Romanian government. In 1984 an uncensored version was published in Germany and her work depicting life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania was devoured by readers.

That work was followed by "Oppresive Tango" in Romania.

Because of her vocal criticism of Romania's government, and its feared secret police, she and her husband left the country.

The prize includes a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prize and will be handed out Dec. 10 in the Swedish capital.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Ian Frazier is a funny man. Officially.

The author and frequent New Yorker contributor won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for his lighthearted book on parental guidance, "Lamentations of the Father." Frazier, who in 1997 received the inaugural Thurber award, will receive $5,000, prize organizers said Monday.

Other previous Thurber winners include David Sedaris, Christopher Buckley and Jon Stewart and the co-authors of "America (The Book)."

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- A critical work on black intellectuals and an anthology of the late Chicano poet Jose Antonio Burciaga are among this year's winners of American Book Awards.

The awards, now in their 30th year, are given for outstanding work of multicultural literature and are sponsored by the nonprofit educational organization, the Before Columbus Foundation.

Recipients announced Tuesday included Houston A. Baker's "Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Right Era," "The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of Jose Antonio Burciaga" and Claire Hope Cummings' "Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds."

Just in from the Associated Press:

LONDON -- A tale of political intrigue set during the reign of King Henry VIII won the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction Tuesday.

Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" scooped the 50,000-pound ($80,000) prize. Mantel's novel charts the upheaval caused by the king's desire to marry Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell.

Mantel's novel beat stiff competition from a shortlist that included previous Booker winners A.S. Byatt and J.M. Coetzee.

From the Associated Press

STOCKHOLM -- The new frontman of the Nobel literature prize jury believes the secretive panel has been too "Eurocentric" in picking winners and says there are plenty of American writers who would qualify for the award.

Peter Englund's comments Oct. 6 come two days before the prize announcement. They contrast with his predecessor's view that U.S. literature is too insular.

Englund told The Associated Press that because award judges in the Swedish Academy are European they tend to a "European outlook" on literature. Europeans have dominated the literature awards in recent decades and won nine of the last 10.

Englund, who replaced Horace Engdahl as the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary in June, said "I think that is a problem."

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Three poets, two fiction writers and a nonfiction writer have won $25,000 prizes given annually to emerging women authors.

Poets Vievee Francis, Janice Harrington and Heidy Steidlymayer; fiction writers Lori Ostlund and Helen Phillips; and nonfiction writer Krista Bremer are this year's recipients of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards. The awards were announced Wednesday.

Previous winners of the award, founded in 1995, include ZZ Packer and Lan Samantha Chang.

From the Associated Press:

LONDON -- The purported autobiography of a movie-star chimpanzee is among the contenders for Britain's most prestigious literary award.

"Me Cheeta" is one of 13 novels on the Booker Prize longlist. Originally published anonymously, James Lever's book claims to tell the life story of the chimp who gained 1930s Hollywood stardom in "Tarzan" movies.

Alice Munro, the revered Canadian short story writer, has won the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, according to the Associated Press.

The award, announced Tuesday, is worth around $95,000.

Munro, 77, is known for such collections as "Friend of My Youth" and "The View from Castle Rock." Her short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" was adapted into the acclaimed film "Away from Her," starring Julie Christie.

If you aren't familiar with Munro's work, do yourself a favor and pick up one of her short story collections at the library or bookstore. I'm not a big short story fan, but I love Munro.

Just in from the Associated Press:

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners are:

Fiction: "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout.
Drama: "Ruined" by Lynn Nottage.
History: "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family" by Annette Gordon-Reed.
Biography: "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House" by Jon Meacham.
Poetry: "The Shadow of Sirius" by W. S. Merwin.
General Nonfiction: "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II" by Douglas A. Blackmon.

From the Associated Press:

Poet Fanny Howe has received a $100,000 prize for lifetime achievement.

The 68-year-old Howe, whose collections include "On the Ground" and "The Lyrics," won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

The award, which is "given to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition," was announced Tuesday by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation.

The foundation also awarded a $10,000 prize for criticism, the Randall Jarrell Award, to 39-year-old Ange Mlinko, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation and on the Poetry Foundation Web site.

From the Associated Press:

Stories and scholarship from around the world were honored by book critics Thursday night, including works about the ancient and modern Middle East and a novel set in Mexico, the late Roberto Bolano's "2666."

From the Associated Press:
Historian and Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust has won a $50,000 prize from the New York Historical Society for "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War."
Faust, 61, received the fourth annual American History Book Prize, the society announced Tuesday. She has written several other books about the Civil War and the South, including "Mothers of Invention" and "A Sacred Circle."
Previous winners include Doris Kearns Goodwin and David Nasaw.

Tobias Wolff, best known for his memoir "This Boy's Life," has been awarded a $20,000 prize for excellence in short story writing.

Wolff won the Story Prize on Wednesday for the collection "Our Story Begins." The finalists -- Jhumpa Lahiri, for "Unaccustomed Earth," and Joe Meno for "Demons in the Spring" -- each received $5,000.

The Story Prize was founded in 2004; previous winners include Mary Gordon and Edwidge Danticat.

This just in from the Associated Press:

Joseph O'Neill's "Netherland," an acclaimed post-Sept. 11 novel bypassed for the National Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle prize, has finally received a literary honor: the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.

From the Associated Press:

A Hungarian novel about a writer who lives with his mother and an eclectic, experimental collection of Japanese verse have been named winners of the Best Translated Book Awards for fiction and poetry.

News from the Associated Press:

Oh, the horror: Neil Gaiman has received the top prize for children's literature: The John Newbery Medal.

Gaiman's spooky "The Graveyard Book," about a boy raised by vampire, a werewolf and a witch, was named the winner of the 88th annual Newbery. The Randolph Caldecott Medal, given to the illustrator of the best picture book, went to Beth Krommes for "The House in the Night," written by Susan Marie Swanson.

The Coretta Scott King Award for best author was given to Kadir Nelson, for "We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. The illustrator award went to Floyd Cooper for "The Blacker the Berry." The King prizes were founded 40 years ago to honor the works of African Americans.

To read more about "The Graveyard Book," click here .

From the Associated Press

Jhumpa Lahiri, Tobias Wolff and Joe Meno are the finalists for the fifth annual Story Prize for outstanding short fiction.

Christopher Hivner of Dallastown won first place in the Mona Schreiber Prize for Humorous Fiction and Nonfiction. His winning story, "Get Frankie!", can be read at www.brashcyber.com/mona.htm.

From the Associated Press:

Five novels for teens are finalists for the American Library Association's first-ever William C. Morris YA Debut Award.

The prize is given for books that "illuminate the teen experience and enrich the lives of its readers through its excellence."

The nominees, announced this week: Elizabeth Bunce's (rhymes with once) "A Curse Dark as Gold"; Kristin Cashore's "Graceling"; James Lecesne's "Absolute Brightness"; Christina Meldrum's "Madapple"; and Jenny Valentine's "Me, the Missing and the Dead."

The winner will be announced Jan. 26.

Book award winners, announced Nov. 19, from left: Mark Doty, poetry; Annette Gordon-Reed, nonfiction; Judy Blundell, young people's literature and Peter Matthiessen, fiction.

Judges for the National Book Award honored a comeback, giving the fiction award to Peter Matthiessen's "Shadow Country," a thorough revision of a trilogy of novels from the 1990s.
The nonfiction prize went to Annette Gordon-Reed for "The Hemingses of Monticello," while the poetry category was won by Mark Doty's "Fire to Fire." Former genre writer-for-hire Judy Blundell won in young people's literature, for "What I Saw and How I Lied."
For more on book awards http://features.csmonitor.com/books/2008/11/20/national-book-award-prizes-announced/

Mary Hamilton's "Rising from the Wilderness," a biography about controversial newspaper owner J.W. Gitt, won the American Journalism Historians Award for Best Book in Media History published in 2007. The book was published by the York County Heritage Trust.

"The Horseshoe Curve: Sabotage and Subversion in the Railroad City" by Dennis P. McIlnay of Hollidaysburg received the Gold Medal as the Best Regional Nonfiction Book in the Mid-Atlantic Region from the Independent Association of America.