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Oct 11 – Oct 17, 2010 Edition 2010 National Book Awards Finalists Announced
New York, NY/ AUTHORLINK NEWS/October 14, 2010–Author Pat Conroy announced the twenty Finalists for the 2010 National Book Award at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, Georgia, yesterday. The list includes a previous National Book Award Winner, two previous Finalists, thirteen women–the largest number of women Finalists in a single year in the Awards’ history–and six books from small, independent presses.
The Fiction list includes Australian-born Peter Carey (now a U.S. citizen living in New York City); Brooklynite Nicole Krauss; North Carolina native Lionel Shriver, who now divides her time between Brooklyn and London; Baltimore native, now Michigan-based Jaimy Gordon (this is the second year in a row that a Kalamazoo author has been a Fiction Finalist); and Californian Karen Tei Yamashita.
Young People’s Literature Finalists Walter Dean Myers and Rita Williams-Garcia have both been Finalists in the category in previous years, the former in 1999 and 2005, and the latter just last year. The other three Finalists are Paolo Bacigalupi, a Nebula and Hugo Award nominee for his adult science-fiction writing (Ship Breaker is his first book for young readers); former attorney Kathryn Erskine for her second book for young adults; and Laura McNeal, a former teacher who co-authored her three previous books with her husband.
The nonfiction list includes a memoir, a biography, and three diverse accounts of war. Musician and poet Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids chronicles both her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the artistic and political scenes of New York City in the 1970s, and Justin Spring’s biography of Samuel Steward is a veritable archive of the social history of gay life before Stonewall. Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy and Megan K. Stack’s Every Man in This Village Is a Liar tell of the ongoing turmoil in North Korea and the Middle East, respectively, while 1999 National Book Award Winner John W. Dower’s Cultures of War examines the effects of four powerful historical events: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
All of this year’s Poetry Finalists are first-time nominees for the Award, though C.D. Wright was a National Book Awards Judge in 2006. By the Numbers is James Richardson’s seventh book of poetry, in addition to his two critical works. The Eternal City by Kathleen Graber and Ignatz by attorney Monica Youn are second collections, while Lighthead is Terrance Hayes’ third.
The Winner in each category–Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature–will be announced at the 61st National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Wednesday, November 17. Satirist, comedian, and actor Andy Borowitz will emcee the event. Each Winner will receive $10,000 and a bronze statue; each Finalist will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal. The Chairs of this year’s dinner and ceremony are Hyatt Bass, Morgan Entrekin, Lynn Nesbit, and Shelley Wanger. Tom Wolfe will receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, to be presented by journalist and founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, Tina Brown. The Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community will go to Sesame Street visionary Joan Ganz Cooney, to be presented by children’s book author and the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jon Scieszka.
The Finalists were selected by four distinguished panels of five judges each who were given the charge of selecting what they deem to be the best books of the year. Their decisions are made independent of the National Book Foundation, which organizes the Awards program, and their deliberations are strictly confidential. To be eligible for a 2010 National Book Award, a book must have been published in the United States between December 1, 2009, and November 30, 2010, and must have been written by a United States citizen.
“The diversity of voices among the Finalists in all the categories makes it a particularly intriguing year for the National Book Award,” said National Book Foundation Executive Director Harold Augenbraum.
The invitation-only awards ceremony is the culminating event of National Book Awards Week, which includes: 5 Under 35, the fifth year of the Foundation’s celebration of emerging fiction writers selected by past National Book Award Finalists Winners, which will take place at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn, on the evening of November 15; the National Book Awards Teen Press Conference, which will feature all five Young People’s Literature Finalists on the morning of November 16 at the Schomburg Center of The New York Public Library; a gathering of the five winners of the Foundation’s second Innovations in Reading Prize for a luncheon at The Ford Foundation in the afternoon on November 16; and the National Book Awards Finalists Reading at The New School on the evening of November 16, in which all twenty Finalists will take part.
For more information about the Finalists and National Book Awards Week events, visit www.nationalbook.org .
Fiction
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
Nicole Krauss, Great House (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)
Nonfiction
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group)
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War (Doubleday)
Poetry
Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City (Princeton University Press)
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Viking Penguin)
James Richardson, By the Numbers (Copper Canyon Press)
C.D. Wright, One with Others (Copper Canyon Press)
Monica Youn, Ignatz (Four Way Books)
Young People’s Literature
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown & Co.)
Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird (Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group)
Laura McNeal, Dark Water (Alfred A. Knopf)
Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown (Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer (Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
The Judges for the 2010 National Book Awards:
Fiction
Joanna Scott (Chair), Andrei Codrescu, Samuel R. Delany, Sabina Murray, Carolyn See
Nonfiction
Marjorie Garber (Chair), Blake Bailey, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Seth Lerer, Sallie Tisdale
Poetry
Cornelius Eady (Chair), Rae Armantrout, Linda Gregerson, Jeffrey McDaniel, Brenda Shaughnessy
Young People’s Literature
Tor Seidler (Chair), Laban Carrick Hill, Kelly Link, Hope Anita Smith, Sara Zarr
