Matthiessen, Gordon-Reed, Doty, and Blundell The Win National Book Award
Posted by: Courtney Jones
The National Book Award winners were announced last night:
Fiction
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen (Modern Library)
Non Fiction
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (Norton)
Poetry
Fire to Fire by Mark Doty (HarperCollins)
Young People’s Literature
What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell (Scholastic)
Each winner took home a $10,000 cash prize and a nice bronze statue.
It’s been suggested that there may be some controversy over Matthiessen’s win. Shadow Country is a revised compilation of three earlier works (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, Bone by Bone) based on the life of outlaw Edgar J. Watson.
Gordon-Reed’s win could not have come at better time if she planned it. Referencing President-Elect Obama, The New York Times quoted her saying:
[Gordon-Reed] was the first African-American author to win the prize for nonfiction since Orlando Patterson won for “Freedom” in 1991. “I can’t say what a wonderful November this has been,” she said. “It’s sort of wonderful to have the book come out at this time. People ask me if I planned it this way; I didn’t. All of America — we’re on a great journey now and I look forward to the years to come.”
November 20th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Here is a link to a video with Annette Gordon-Reed talking about The Hemingses of Monticello: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QA24_T189U
November 20th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I’ll bet right now Updike is furiously condensing his four Rabbit books into a single volume so he’ll have a shot at next year’s fiction award.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Ha! Good one, Pete.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] will be announced on May 28th. Of course this may be icing on the cake for Gordon-Reed, who won the National Book Award back in [...]