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National Book Awards announced!
Nov. 18th, 2004 07:32 am
Not only did my former advisor, Kevin Boyle, win for best non-fiction, but one of his daughters (Abby) got to be part of Judy Blume's medal presentation.
Listen to NPR review of Arc of Justice (about 6 minutes).
Watch a video from Ohio State interviewing Kevin (about 3 minutes long).
Winners of the 55th US National Book Awards pictured left to right, Kevin Boyle, Lily Tuck, Jean Valentine and Pete Hautman on November 17, 2004. (AP)
South America Epic Wins the National Book Award
By EDWARD WYATT, The New York Times, November 18, 2004
"The News From Paraguay," Lily Tuck's historical epic set in 19th-century South America, won the National Book Award for fiction last night, capping a month in which the publishing world debated the merits of the work of five little-known female authors living in New York City and the meaning and purpose of literary awards.
The novel, published by HarperCollins, is the tale of a woman who blunders her way into history and a dictator who both gives her a family and destroys it. Rick Moody, the chairman of the panel of judges who chose the winner and the four other finalists, called it a novel of "astonishing quality" that incorporates a rich mixture of language and imagination.
The imagination portion in particular was evident when, in her acceptance remarks, Ms. Tuck confessed that she had never been to Paraguay and did not intend to go.
"I've often been asked, 'Why Paraguay?' " Ms. Tuck told an audience of about 600 people at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown Manhattan. "I don't have an answer," she said, although she admitted that it did allow her to exercise her penchant for writing about "stuff that most people don't know about" and satisfied her "need to teach or instruct."
"It gives me an edge," she added.
The nonfiction prize went to Kevin Boyle for "Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age,'' published by Henry Holt & Company. Mr. Boyle, a professor of history at Ohio State University, wrote of the life of Dr. Ossian Sweet, whose purchase of a house in an all-white neighborhood in Detroit in the early 1920's sparked a race riot and murder trial.
When whites attacked Dr. Sweet's home shortly after he moved in, one of the attackers was shot and killed by a panicked black man who had come to Dr. Sweet's defense. The Sweets and nine other men were charged with murder. Reviewing the book in The New York Times, Patricia Cohen said the story of the trial, and the defense effort headed by Clarence Darrow, "is filled with rich detail and unexpected twists," although not for Dr. Sweet. Though he finally won acquittal, he lived out his life as a bitter, unhappy man in what remains one of the most segregated cities in America.
( Read More... )
Listen to NPR review of Arc of Justice (about 6 minutes).
Watch a video from Ohio State interviewing Kevin (about 3 minutes long).
Winners of the 55th US National Book Awards pictured left to right, Kevin Boyle, Lily Tuck, Jean Valentine and Pete Hautman on November 17, 2004. (AP)
South America Epic Wins the National Book Award
By EDWARD WYATT, The New York Times, November 18, 2004
"The News From Paraguay," Lily Tuck's historical epic set in 19th-century South America, won the National Book Award for fiction last night, capping a month in which the publishing world debated the merits of the work of five little-known female authors living in New York City and the meaning and purpose of literary awards.
The novel, published by HarperCollins, is the tale of a woman who blunders her way into history and a dictator who both gives her a family and destroys it. Rick Moody, the chairman of the panel of judges who chose the winner and the four other finalists, called it a novel of "astonishing quality" that incorporates a rich mixture of language and imagination.
The imagination portion in particular was evident when, in her acceptance remarks, Ms. Tuck confessed that she had never been to Paraguay and did not intend to go.
"I've often been asked, 'Why Paraguay?' " Ms. Tuck told an audience of about 600 people at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown Manhattan. "I don't have an answer," she said, although she admitted that it did allow her to exercise her penchant for writing about "stuff that most people don't know about" and satisfied her "need to teach or instruct."
"It gives me an edge," she added.
The nonfiction prize went to Kevin Boyle for "Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age,'' published by Henry Holt & Company. Mr. Boyle, a professor of history at Ohio State University, wrote of the life of Dr. Ossian Sweet, whose purchase of a house in an all-white neighborhood in Detroit in the early 1920's sparked a race riot and murder trial.
When whites attacked Dr. Sweet's home shortly after he moved in, one of the attackers was shot and killed by a panicked black man who had come to Dr. Sweet's defense. The Sweets and nine other men were charged with murder. Reviewing the book in The New York Times, Patricia Cohen said the story of the trial, and the defense effort headed by Clarence Darrow, "is filled with rich detail and unexpected twists," although not for Dr. Sweet. Though he finally won acquittal, he lived out his life as a bitter, unhappy man in what remains one of the most segregated cities in America.
( Read More... )
