Awards Season in Full Bloom

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

The spring is a busy season for literary awards, so Bookselling This Week has compiled a list of some of the winning authors and finalists from all over the world announced in the last week. And the winners are…

2016 PEN Literary Award Winners

Five of PEN America’s 19 PEN Literary Award winners were announced live at a ceremony in New York City on Monday, April 11. At the ceremony, PEN revealed the addition of two new prizes to its annual awards program, which will be presented for the first time in 2017: the PEN Translation of Italian Literature Grant and the PEN/Robert J. Dau Debut Short Fiction Prize. A complete list of the 2016 winners is available at the PEN America website.

The 2016 PEN Literary Award winners revealed at the April 11 ceremony are:

  • PEN/Bingham Prize for a Debut Story Collection ($25,000) : Mia Alvar for her short story collection In the Country (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award: Lauren Redniss for Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future (Random House)
  • PEN Open Book Award: Rick Barot for his third poetry collection, Chord (Sarabande Books)
  • PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay: Ta-Nehisi Coates for Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau/Random House)
  • PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers Prize ($10,000): Jean Guerrero for her memoir Crux
  • PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction (previously announced): Toni Morrison 

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners

The winners of the 36th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, honoring the previous year’s best books and their authors, were presented at Bovard Auditorium on the University of Southern California campus on Saturday, April 9, during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

This year’s winners are:

  • Biography: Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • Current Interest: Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security by Sarah Chayes (W.W. Norton)
  • Fiction: The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli, translated by Christina MacSweeney, (Coffee House Press)
  • Graphic Novel/Comics: Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978–1984: A Graphic Memoir by Riad Sattouf (Metropolitan Books)
  • History: Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron (W.W. Norton)
  • Mystery/Thriller: The Cartel by Don Winslow (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Poetry: From the New World: Poems 1976–2014 by Jorie Graham (Ecco/HarperCollins)
  • Science and Technology: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf (Alfred A. Knopf).
  • The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown)
  • Young Adult Literature: My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson (namelos)
  • Innovator’s Award (previously announced): James Patterson
  • Robert Kirsch Award (previously announced): Juan Felipe Herrera

NCIBA 2016 Book Award Winners

The bookstore members of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association have selected the winners of the 2016 Book of the Year Awards, which recognize books in a variety of categories that were published in 2015 by Northern California authors.

This year’s winners are:

  • Fiction: Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (Random House)
  • Nonfiction: Pieces of My Mother by Melissa Cistaro (Sourcebooks)
  • Food Writing: The Mission Chinese Good Cookbook by Danny Bowen and Chris Ying (Anthony Bourdain/Ecco)
  • Regional: California’s Wild Edge: The Coast in Prints, Poetry, and History by Tom Killion & Gary Snyder (Heyday Books)
  • Picture Book: Rad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl (City Lights Publishers)
  • Poetry: Disorder by Vanisha Pravin (University of Chicago Press)
  • Young Adult: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill)
  • Middle Grade: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate (Fewel & Friends)

Will Alexander, 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize Winner

Poet Will Alexander is the winner of the10th annual Jackson Poetry Prize. Awarded by Poets & Writers, the $50,000 prize is given to an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition. Poets are nominated by a panel of their peers, who remain anonymous.

Alexander is a poet, aphorist, playwright, essayist, philosopher, visual artist, and pianist whose previous awards include the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2007 and an American Book Award in 2013. A native of Los Angeles, he is the author of nearly 30 books and currently serves as poet-in-residence at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California.

Toni Morrison, 2016 Edward MacDowell Medal Winner

Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, editor, and professor Toni Morrison will receive the 57th Edward MacDowell Medal on Sunday, August 14, at the MacDowell Colony. Since 1960, the arts colony located in Peterborough, New Hampshire, has awarded the medal annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture.

“If any writer could be called our nation’s conscience, that writer would be Toni Morrison,” said bestselling author Dave Eggers, chair of the Edward MacDowell Medal Selection Panel. Serving with Eggers on the selection panel were the authors Marlon James, Amy Tan, and MacDowell Fellow and board member Julie Orringer. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, MacDowell Colony Chairman and Fellow, will present the Medal at the August event.

2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist

The International and Canadian shortlists for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize were announced Tuesday, April 12, by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.

The seven finalists, whose work was selected from 633 books of poetry from 43 countries, including 25 translations, will read at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning in Toronto on Wednesday, June 1. The winners, to be announced at the Griffin Poetry Prize Awards on Thursday, June 2, will receive $65,000 each; the finalists will receive a prize of $10,000 each.

Every year, House of Anansi Press publishes an anthology of poems selected from the shortlisted books, and all royalties are donated to UNESCO’s World Poetry Day. Booksellers who would like to order free Griffin Poetry Prize book stickers should send an e-mail to [email protected].

This year’s finalists are:

International Shortlist

  • The Quotations of Bone by Norman Dubie (Copper Canyon Press)
  • Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo (W.W. Norton)
  • 40 Sonnets by Don Paterson (Faber & Faber)
  • Heaven by Rowan Ricardo Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Canadian Shortlist

  • Frayed Opus for Strings & Wind Instruments by Ulrikka S. Gernes, translated by Per Brask and Patrick Friesen (Brick Books)
  • Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard (McClelland & Stewart)
  • Tell: poems for a girlhood by Soraya Peerbaye (Pedlar Press)

International Dublin Literary Award Shortlist

The shortlist for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award, which includes a prize of €100,000 ($113,000), was announced on Tuesday, April 12. Since 1995, public libraries around the world have nominated titles by novelists of all nationalities.

The 2016 shortlist includes:

  • Outlaws by Javier Cercas (Spain), translated by Anne McLean
  • Academy Street by Mary Costello (Ireland), debut novel
  • Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? by Dave Eggers (U.S.)
  • The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany), translated by Susan Bernofsky
  • A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Jamaica)
  • Diary of the Fall by Michel Laub (Brazil), translated by Margaret Jull Costa
  • Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga (Rwanda), debut novel, translated from French by Melanie Mauthner
  • Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (U.S.)
  • Lila by Marilynne Robinson (U.S.)
  • Family Life by Akhil Sharma (U.S.)

2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

The U.K.’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced on Monday, April 11, the eve of the London Book Fair. The prize was founded in 1996 to celebrate the excellence, originality, and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world.

The 2016 nominees are:

  • A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
  • Ruby by Cynthia Bond
  • The Green Road by Anne Enright
  • The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney (to be published in the U.S. in August by Tim Duggan Books)
  • The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
  • The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild

2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize Finalists

Southern indie booksellers have chosen the finalists for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, formerly known as the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award. The new prize features an expanded list of categories, including Mystery, Thriller, Literary, and History & Life Stories.

The winners will be decided by a juried panel of booksellers and announced on July 4.

The 2016 finalists are:

The Great Santini Fiction Prize

  • Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (Harper)
  • Soil by Jamie Kornegay (Simon & Schuster)
  • My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
  • The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Christopher Scotton (Grand Central Publishing)

The Beach Music Mystery Prize

  • Miss Julia Lays Down the Law by Ann B. Ross (Viking)
  • A Pattern of Lies by Charles Todd (William Morrow)
  • Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
  • Don’t Go Home by Carolyn Hart (Berkley Books)
  • Lowcountry Boneyard by Susan M. Boyer (Henery Press)

The Lords of Discipline Thriller Prize

  • Where All the Light Tends to Go by David Joy (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
  • The Bone Tree by Greg Iles (William Morrow)
  • Descent by Tim Johnston (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
  • Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham (Doubleday Books)
  • The Scribe by Matthew Guinn (W.W. Norton)

The Prince of Tides Literary Prize

  • Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash (Ecco Press)
  • Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (William Morrow)
  • New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott (Tin House Books)
  • Calloustown by George Singleton (Dzanc Books)

The Death of Santini Nonfiction Prize

  • Dispatches From Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant (Simon & Schuster)
  • Leaving Orbit: Notes From the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean (Graywolf Press)
  • My Southern Journey: True Stories From the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg (Oxmoor House)
  • Our Only World: Ten Essays by Wendell Berry (Counterpoint)
  • The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse by Joni Tevis (Milkweed Editions)

The Water is Wide History & Life Stories Prize

  • Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother’s Story by David Payne (Atlantic Monthly Press)
  • Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab by Steve Inskeep (Penguin Press)
  • Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chestnutt by Kristin Hersh (University of Texas Press)
  • Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll by Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown)
  • The World’s Largest Man: A Memoir by Harrison Scott Key (Harper)

The Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize

  • Foster’s Market Favorites: 25th Anniversary Collection by Sara Foster (Story Farm)
  • The Southerner’s Cookbook: Recipes, Wisdom, and Stories by the editors of Garden & Gun (Harper Wave)
  • Sunday Dinner: A Savor the South Cookbook by Bridgette A. Lacy (University of North Carolina Press)
  • The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin (University of Texas Press)
  • Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by One Hundred Years of Cooking in a Black Family by Alice Randall (Clarkson Potter)

The Poppy’s Pants, Jr. Youngsters Prize

  • Hamster Princess: Of Mice and Magic by Ursula Vernon (Dial Books)
  • Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty (Disney-Hyperion)
  • Yard War by Taylor Kitchings (Wendy Lamb Books)
  • Seeds of Freedom: The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama by Hester Bass (Candlewick)

The Poppy’s Pants Young Adult Prize

  • Anything Could Happen by Will Walton (Push)
  • The Odds of Getting Even by Sheila Turnage (Kathy Dawson Books)
  • Mosquitoland by David Arnold (Viking Books for Young Readers)
  • The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Categories: