The Literarian Award
for Outstanding Service to the American Literary
Community is presented to an individual for outstanding
service to the American literary community, whose
life and work exemplify the goals of the National
Book Foundation to expand the audience for literature
and to enhance the cultural value of literature
in America.
On the evening
of November 18, the National Book Foundation awarded
The Literarian Award to Dave Eggers, author, editor,
journalist, publisher, screenwriter, and co-founder
of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring
center for youth. Eggers’ first book, A
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000),
was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has since
written a number of books including the You Shall
Know Our Velocity (2002) and the novel What
is the What (2006), a finalist for the National
Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to writing,
Eggers co-founded McSweeney’s
(www.mcsweeneys.net),
an independent publishing house that publishes two
print magazines, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly
Concern (since 1998), The Believer (since
2003), Wholphin (since 2005), a short-film
DVD quarterly, and a daily humor website.
Eggers photo credit:
Michelle Quint
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in suburban
Lake Forest, Illinois, and attended the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating with a
degree in journalism. His literary career began as
a Salon.com editor and since then he has written fiction,
nonfiction, and has edited anthologies including the
annual series The
Best American Nonrequired Reading (bestamericannonrequiredreading.blogspot.com).
He co-wrote the screenplay
Away We Go with his wife, Vendela Vida,
which was released by Focus Features in 2009. In 2007
he completed Max
at Sea, a novel adaptation of Where
the Wild Things Are, the storybook authored
by Maurice Sendak. Eggers also co-wrote the screenplay
ofWhere
the Wild Things Are with Spike Jonze,
which will premier in October of this year. His most
recent book is Zeitoun (2009).
As a literary
social entrepreneur, Eggers co-founded with Nínive
Calegari 826 Valencia (http://www.826national.org),
a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth
in the Mission District of San Francisco. Since 2002,
local communities have opened sister 826 centers in
Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle,
and Boston. In 2004, Eggers co-founded Voice
of Witness (www.voiceofwitness.com),
a series of books using oral history to illuminate
human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the
co-founder of the Valentino
Achak Deng Foundation (www.valentinoachakdeng.org),
which is improving educational opportunities for Sudanese
children in Sudan and the United States.
