Jonathan Kirsch
2003 Nonfiction Panel Chair
Walter
Mosley (Master of Ceremonies): The first award
this evening is for nonfiction. The finalists are:
Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Doubleday/Random
House; George Howe Colt, The Big House: A Century
in the Life of an American Home, Scribner/Simon
& Schuster; John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The
Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, Free Press/Simon
& Schuster; Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in
Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, Free Press/Simon
& Schuster; and Erik Larson, The Devil in the
White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair
that Changed America, Crown Publishing/Random
House.
It's my
pleasure to introduce the Chairman of the nonfiction
jury, Jonathan Kirsch. He is the author of ten books
including the forthcoming God Against the Gods:
The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism,
to be published by Viking in 2004. He is also a columnist
for the L.A. Times Book Review and an attorney
specializing in publishing law. Mr. Kirsch.
Jonathan
Kirsch: Thank
you and good evening. I am deeply honored to appear
before you tonight as the representative of the nonfiction
judging panel for the 54th National Book Awards including
the four distinguished writers and discerning readers
who served with me on the panel. They are: Catherine
Clinton, a writer, historian and biographer who is
affiliated with the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale
University; Wendy Gimbel, author of Havana Dreams
and a trustee of PEN, The Kenyon Review and
Parnassus, who is researching and writing a
book about sugar and the Caribbean in the 18th century;
Lawrence Jackson, biographer of Ralph Ellison, who
teaches English and African-American studies at Emory
University; and Terry Teachout, the drama critic of
the Wall Street Journal, whose latest book,
The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, is just
out in paperback from Perennial.
Over the
last seven months, the five of us were afforded the
opportunity and the duty to read and weigh the merits
of the 436 nonfiction titles that were submitted for
consideration for the National Book Award. I must
say that I took great pleasure in the conversations,
both in person and by conference calls graciously
coordinated by National Book Foundation Senior Program
Officer Meredith Andrews by which we judged the entries.
From the
beginning, we were mindful of the long tradition and
high standards that are attached to the National Book
Awards and as pleasurable as the process of judging
turned to be, we took our jobs seriously. At the same
time, we were bedeviled by the task of picking a short
list of five books and then a single winner from a
small mountain of books that included works of history,
biography, memoir, criticism, politics, religion,
science, travel and much else besides.
We are
sworn to silence on all but the final result of our
proceedings but I think that I am permitted to share
at least one aspect of our approach to judging. Early
on, Wendy Gimbel observed that we should not consider
any book for the short list that did not move us to
say after closing the book, "zowie." Later,
Larry Jackson expressed a preference for the term
"high cotton" as a sign of praise.
This did
we begin to call our list of books in active contention
the "zowie high cotton list." A few hours
ago we put the "zowie high cotton list"
on the table at Wendy Gimbel's beautiful home for
one last conversation about the five books we had
come to know so well and admire so much. I am pleased
to announce that the winner of the 2003 National Book
Award for nonfiction is Carlos Eire for Waiting
for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy,
published by the Free Press.
Read
Carlos Eire's Acceptance Speech
