NBF to Present Lifetime Achievement Award to Acclaimed Author Isabel Allende

One of literature’s most prestigious honors, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters recognizes individuals who have made an exceptional impact on this country’s literary heritage.

Author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Luís Alberto Urrea to present Medal to Allende

One of literature’s most prestigious honors, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters recognizes individuals who have made an exceptional impact on this country’s literary heritage.

The National Book Foundation announced it will award Isabel Allende with its 2018 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL). The Chilean-American author, whose 1982 debut novel The House of the Spirits propelled her into the literary limelight and the public consciousness, is being honored for her expansive body of work—made up of nearly two dozen works of fiction, memoir, and essay—and her role as a critical figure of Latin-American literature, as well as a wildly successful writer of titles in translation in the U.S., Allende’s adopted country.

Written in her native Spanish, Allende’s work has been translated into 35 languages and has sold nearly 70 million copies across the globe, a testament to her work’s broad, global significance. Allende is the recipient of many distinguished honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to her by Barack Obama in 2014. The DCAL will be presented to Allende by the acclaimed Mexican-American writer Luís Alberto Urrea, whose book The Devil’s Highway was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Allende will be the first Spanish-language author to the recognized with the DCAL honor, and only the second, since Saul Bellow in 1990, to be born outside the United States.

“Able to forge profoundly emotional connections with readers around the world, Isabel Allende has offered generations of fans multilayered and deeply felt narratives that illuminate the rich lives and histories of her characters,” said David Steinberger, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation. “Allende pulls from her own experiences to offer a global audience access to geographically and culturally specific stories that might otherwise never reach them.”

Prior to becoming a novelist, Allende spent many years as a journalist in Chile. Her family was forced to flee to Venezuela following the 1973 coup that deposed her father’s cousin, Salvador Allende, and installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator, an experience that would inform her groundbreaking first novel, which established Allende as a significant talent. Critically acclaimed in South America and beyond, The House of the Spirits is a multigenerational story of a family’s history in Chile from the 1920s to ’70s, and heralded a new voice in the male-dominated canon of Latin-American literature.

First published in 1982, The House of the Spirits would go on to be translated into dozens of languages in many countries, serialized in American Vogue, and become an international bestseller. Subsequent titles explore stories all over the globe, from gold rush-era California (Daughter of Fortune, an Oprah Book Club selection) to late 18th-century Spain (Zorro) and more. In addition to her novels, Allende has written multiple memoirs, including Paula, an intensely personal book that explores the fantastic history of Allende’s life and family and the experience of tending to her daughter in her final days.

“Through expertly crafted and propulsive narratives, Allende elevates the stories and lives of women, never condescending to her readers or cheapening the experiences of her characters,” said Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “Allende’s work is proof that artistic excellence and commercial viability are not exclusive concepts, and that stories about women written with women in mind are not only good business, but also represent crucial contributions to the literary landscape.”

Allende immigrated to the United States in 1987 and became an American citizen in 1993. Her experiences as an immigrant, journalist, and former political refugee continue to inform much of her work, which concerns itself with issues of human rights, social justice, and the struggles women face in achieving parity of power. While many of her stories are imbued with notes of magic realism, Allende writes broadly across subjects, speaking to greater truths about power, identity, love, family, displacement, and loss.

In addition to her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, Allende is the author of 22 additional titles, including memoirs, essays, novels, and books for young readers. These include Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, City of the Beasts, Paula, and In the Midst of Winter, her most recent novel. The National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters joins a host of prestigious awards and honors with which Allende’s remarkable life and work have been recognized. In addition to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN America, Chile’s National Literature Prize, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. On top of her writing career, Allende devotes much of her life to philanthropic causes, work that includes her charitable foundation invested in the protection and advancement of girls and women worldwide, established in honor of her late daughter. Allende’s full bio can be found below.

Allende is the 31st recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which was created in 1988 to recognize a lifetime of literary achievement. Previous recipients include Annie Proulx, Robert A. Caro, John Ashbery, Judy Blume, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, E.L. Doctorow, Maxine Hong Kingston, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Elmore Leonard, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, John Updike, Eudora Welty, and Tom Wolfe.

Nominations for the DCAL medal are made by former National Book Award Winners, Finalists, judges, and other writers and literary professionals from around the country. The final selection is made by the National Book Foundation’s Board of Directors. Recipients of the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters receive $10,000 and a solid brass medal.

About Isabel Allende

Chilean author Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim when her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, was published in 1982. In addition to launching Allende’s career as a renowned author, the book, which grew out of a farewell letter to her dying grandfather, also established her as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world.

She has since written 22 more works, including Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, Stories of Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, a trilogy for young readers (City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies), Zorro, Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the Sea, Maya’s Notebook, Ripper, The Japanese Lover, and her latest book, In the Midst of Winter. Books of nonfiction include Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs: My Invented Country, Paula (a bestseller that documents Allende’s daughter’s illness and death, as well as her own life), and The Sum of Our Days.

Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into 35 languages and have sold nearly 70 million copies. Her works both entertain and educate readers by weaving intriguing stories with significant historical events. Settings for her books include Chile throughout the 15th, 19th and 20th centuries, the California gold rush, the guerrilla movement of 1960s Venezuela, the Vietnam War and the 18th-century slave revolt in Haiti.

Allende, who has received dozens of international tributes and awards over the last 30 years, describes her fiction as “realistic literature,” rooted in her remarkable upbringing and the mystical people and events that fueled her imagination. Her writings are equally informed by her feminist convictions, her commitment to social justice and the harsh political realities that shaped her destiny.

A prominent journalist for Chilean television and magazines in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Allende’s life was forever altered when General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup in 1973 that toppled Chile’s socialist reform government. Allende’s cousin Salvador Allende, who had been elected Chile’s president in 1970, died in the coup. The Pinochet regime was marked early on by repression and brutality, and Allende became involved with groups offering aid to victims of the regime. Ultimately finding it unsafe to remain in Chile, she fled the country in 1975 with her husband and two children. The family lived in exile in Venezuela for the next 13 years.

In 1981, Allende learned that her beloved grandfather, who still lived in Chile, was dying. She began a letter to him, recounting her childhood memories of life in her grandparents’ home. Although her grandfather died before having a chance to read the letter, its contents became the basis for The House of the Spirits, the novel that launched her literary career at age 40. The novel details the lives of two families living in Chile from the 1920s to the country’s military coup in 1973, and has been described as both a family saga and a political testimony.

In addition to her work as a writer, Allende also devotes much of her time to human rights. Following the death of her daughter, Paula, in 1992, she established in her honor a charitable foundation dedicated to the protection and empowerment of women and girls worldwide.

Since 1987, Allende has made her home in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Allende became a U.S. citizen in 1993, but lives, she says, with one foot in California and the other in Chile.

About Luís Alberto Urrea:

Luís Alberto Urrea (Photo credit: Joe Mazz, Brave Lux)
Luís Alberto Urrea (Photo credit: Joe Mazz, Brave Lux)

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s HighwayLuís Alberto Urrea is also the bestselling author of the novels The Hummingbird’s DaughterInto the Beautiful North, and Queen of America, as well as the story collection The Water Museum, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. He has won the Lannan Literary Award, an Edgar Award, and a 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among many other honors. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, he lives outside of Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

NBF to Present Lifetime Achievement Award to Doron Weber

The V.P. and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to be honored at the 2018 National Book Awards for his expansive work connecting literature and science

This is the fourteenth year the National Book Foundation has presented its Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, which is given to an individual for a lifetime of achievement in expanding the audience for books and reading.

The National Book Foundation announced Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, as the recipient of its 2018 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. For over two decades at Sloan, Weber has run the program for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics, which has provided tens of millions of dollars in grant money to a wide range of organizations and individuals, and through which Weber has helped commission, produce, and distribute media that connect the public with science in accessible and illuminating ways. The Literarian Award will be presented to Weber by Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book Hidden Figures, which was supported by funding from Weber’s program at the Sloan Foundation, and also the source material for the Oscar-nominated film of the same name.

Under Weber’s leadership, this program has helped ensure the publication of numerous groundbreaking and acclaimed books such as Hedy’s Folly by National Book Award Winner Richard Rhodes, Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s American Prometheus, Jared Diamond’s Collapse, Stuart Firestein’s Ignorance, and Eric Kandel’s In Search of Memory.

Weber will receive the Literarian Award at the 69th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on November 14, 2018 in New York City. This is the fourteenth year that the Foundation has presented the Literarian Award, which is given to an individual or organization for a lifetime of achievement in expanding the audience for books and reading. Past recipients are Dr. Maya Angelou, Joan Ganz Cooney, Dave Eggers, Barbara Epstein and Robert Silvers, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Terry Gross, Mitchell Kaplan, James Patterson, Barney Rosset, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., Kyle Zimmer, the literary organization Cave Canem, and Richard Robinson.

“At the National Book Foundation, we believe that the scope of literature is expansive; that it can and should open up entirely new worlds to its readers,” said Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “Doron Weber is that principle in action. Firmly committed to the marriage of science and art, Weber has spent his career working to meet readers where they are, connecting them in creative ways to new ideas and modes of thinking.”

Since joining the Sloan Foundation in 1995, Weber has been a critical force behind the production of countless works of literature, film, theater, podcasts, television, and more. He has championed the work of dozens of writers and scientists, and through his Sloan program has helped guide over 100 books to publication. With a commitment to shedding light on untold stories and honoring overlooked key figures in scientific history, Weber’s work has brought extraordinary lives and achievements into the public consciousness. Throughout his career, Weber has demonstrated a commitment to the accessibility of scientific histories and information, ensuring the availability of in-depth, significant stories that are intelligible to a broad readership.

In addition to his signature program for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics, Weber also directs the Sloan Foundation’s efforts to promote Universal Access to Knowledge, which seeks to greatly enhance the accessibility of beneficial human knowledge through the use of digital information technology. Through this program, Weber has helped distribute tens of millions of dollars in grant funding to organizations that provide and safeguard public access to vast amounts of information, including Wikipedia, the Library of Congress, Digital Public Libraries of America, and more.

Weber’s work has been profiled in The New York TimesThe Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Boston Globe, Fortune, and Filmmaker Magazine. His program for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics has received numerous awards, including the National Science Board’s Public Service Award “for its innovative use of traditional media—books, radio, public television—and its pioneering efforts in theater and commercial television and films to advance public understanding of science and technology.”

“We could not be prouder to recognize the unique and vital work of Doron Weber,” said David Steinberger, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation. “For more than two decades at Sloan, Weber has worked passionately and tirelessly to connect readers with exceptional storytelling that is able to distill the enormity of our world into engaging, illuminating narratives.”

In addition to his work commissioning, developing, producing, and disseminating in-depth storytelling through books and other media, Weber serves as President of The Writers Room Board, National Secretary for the Israel Rhodes Scholarship, Trustee of Shakespeare & Co, and Board Visitor of the Wikimedia Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Association of Corporate Directors, and USA Triathlon. Weber is the co-author of three books and the author of Immortal Bird: A Family Memoir (Simon & Schuster), named one of the 50 Notable Works of Non-Fiction by The Washington Post and an Amazon Best Book of the Month. His full bio can be found below.

Nominations for the Literarian Award are made by former National Book Award Winners, Finalists, and Judges, and other writers and literary professionals from around the country. Final selections are made by the National Book Foundation’s Board of Directors. Recipients of the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community receive $10,000.

ABOUT DORON WEBER

Doron Weber was born on a kibbutz in Israel, grew up in New York City, and was educated at Brown University, the Sorbonne, and Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Although his early training was in the arts and fiction-writing, he published several science books, worked at The Rockefeller University, a Nobel-filled biomedical research institute, and gradually moved into science. For over two decades, he has worked at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropy making grants in science, technology, and economics, where he currently serves as Vice President and Program Director.

Weber’s signature Sloan program, Public Understanding of Science and Technology, focuses on connecting the “two cultures” of science and the arts, which he regards as two sides of the same human impulse to understand and meaningfully describe the world around and inside us. Weber helps commission, develop, and produce an array of culture defining products—books, radio, television, film, theatre, new media—to illuminate and humanize science for the lay public. He helped start Radiolab, Tribeca Film Institute, and World Science Festival; supports Emmy-winning television on American Experience, NOVA, and National Geographic, award-winning plays at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and London’s National Theatre, and Oscar-winning films via film schools and film festivals at Sundance, Tribeca, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Weber’s book program supports individual authors and has resulted in over 100 published books. Critically acclaimed titles include Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s American Prometheus, Richard Rhodes’s Hedy’s Folly, Jared Diamond’s Collapse, Stuart Firestein’s Ignorance, and Eric Kandel’s The Age of Insight. More recent books include Carl Zimmer’s She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, Oren Harman’s Evolutions, Richard Rhodes’s Energy, Adam Becker’s What is Real?, Julie Wosk’s My Fair Ladies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s Everybody Lies, Catherine Price’s Vitamania, David Baron’s American Eclipse, M. R. O’Connor’s Resurrection Science, Kevin Davis’s The Brain Defense, Robert Kanigel’s Eyes on the Street, Brooke Borel’s Infested, and Jonathan Waldman’s Rust.

While Weber has developed an organization that supports thousands of screenplays, plays, teleplays, radio plays, webisodes, games, VR, and librettos, he considers books to be an anchor and critical entry point for the entire program, believing books have an outsize influence because they often represent the first serious foray into a new field where authors can uncover or synthesize new knowledge and convey it in the richest, deepest, and most nuanced way. Books also serve as a platform to other media. Weber has helped adapt foundation-supported books (The Poisoner’s HandbookHedy’s Folly) into television documentaries (The Poisoner’s Handbook, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story); other books (Hidden Figures, The Man Who Knew Infinity) into films; and even books (The Elegant Universe) into plays (String Fever). He has championed stories about women scientists in every medium.

At Sloan, Weber also runs the program in Universal Access to Knowledge, which seeks to harness digital information technology to make the benefits of human knowledge accessible to all. His grantmaking has helped lead the Digital Public Library of America, a consortium of over 2,000 libraries, archives and museums in 50 states, and to scale Wikipedia into the largest encyclopedia in human history and the fifth largest web site in the world. A recent grant to Consumer’s Union focuses on consumer privacy in the digital age.

Weber’s work at Sloan has been profiled in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Lifehacker, Fortune, and Filmmaker Magazine. His program has received numerous awards including the National Science Board’s Public Service Award “for its innovative use of traditional media—books, radio, public television—and its pioneering efforts in theater and commercial television and films to advance public understanding of science and technology.”

Prior to Sloan, Weber worked at The Rockefeller University, the Society for the Right to Die, and The Reader’s Catalog. He has also been a screenwriter, speechwriter, teacher, tutor, taxi driver, romance novelist, busboy, and boxer. He currently serves as President of The Writers Room Board, National Secretary for the Israel Rhodes Scholarship, Trustee of Shakespeare & Co, and Board Visitor of the Wikimedia Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Association of Corporate Directors, and USA Triathlon.

In 2012, Weber published Immortal Bird: A Family Memoir (Simon & Schuster), named one of the 50 Notable Works of Non-Fiction by The Washington Post and an Amazon Best Book of the Month. He previously coauthored three books: Safe Blood: Purifying the Nation’s Blood Supply in the Age of AIDS, The Complete Guide to Living Wills, and Final Passages: Positive Choices for the Dying and Their Loved Ones. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York TimesLA Times, USA TodayBarron’sThe Washington Post, and the Boston Review, among others. He is currently at work on a novel.

About Margot Lee Shetterly

 Margot Lee Shetterly (Photo credit: Aran Shetterly)

Margot Lee Shetterly (Photo credit: Aran Shetterly)

Writer, researcher, and entrepreneur Margot Lee Shetterly is the author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. A 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grantee, Shetterly is the founder of The Human Computer Project, an endeavor that is recovering the names and accomplishments of all of the women who worked as computers, mathematicians, scientists and engineers at the NACA and NASA from the 1930s through the 1980s. She is a native of Hampton, Virginia, where she knew many of the women behind the history in Hidden Figures. She lived for many years in New York and Mexico before moving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she lives with her husband, writer Aran Shetterly. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Announcing the Fall Season of NBF Presents!

The National Book Foundation today announced its fall NBF Presents lineup of over a dozen events to come between September and the end of the year, driven by new grant funding and anchored by a three-year, $900,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

This fall, National Book Awards authors to appear at thirteen events in ten states as part of the first year of NBF Presents

The National Book Foundation today announced its fall NBF Presents lineup of over a dozen events to come between September and the end of the year, driven by new grant funding and anchored by a three-year, $900,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. NBF Presents, a program announced earlier this summer, represents a significant expansion of the Foundation’s programming, with new events to take place at libraries, colleges, festivals, conferences, schools, and performance venues across the country. NBF Presents comprises any events produced by NBF, free or ticketed, that are open to the general public. The announcement of the Foundation’s inaugural NBF Presents fall schedule follows the successful rollout of the first NBF Presents project, Notes from the Reading Life, a series presented with the New York Public Library that took place throughout New York City in the spring.

 

In addition to the continuation of longstanding partnerships in New York City and Miami, this fall, the National Book Foundation is newly partnering with five book festivals, two colleges, and three libraries to bring National Book Awards authors face to face with readers in communities in Oregon, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Georgia, and more.

 

“With NBF Presents, we are redoubling our efforts to engage with audiences across the country,” said David Steinberger, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation. “The National Book Awards exist to recognize and elevate significant work, and NBF Presents provides the opportunity to further cultivate a connection between Awards writers and their audiences, to continue to grow and support a nation of engaged, passionate readers.”

 

Authors recognized by the National Book Foundation and confirmed to appear at NBF Presents events in the fall season include Lesley Nneka Arimah, Patricia Bell-Scott, Daniel Borzutzky, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Masha Gessen, David Grann, Min Jin Lee, Carmen Maria Machado, Nancy MacLean, Shane McCrae, Jason Reynolds, Erika L. Sánchez, Danez Smith, and Ibi Zoboi with more to come. Authors will appear in conversations and on panels built around cultural and literary themes, presenting a unique opportunity for the Foundation and its partners to curate events topically and to make them relevant in various parts of the country, offering the chance for more communities to access and participate in impactful cultural conversations. With new partnerships opening doors to diverse audiences across the nation, NBF Presents hopes to bring more Americans towards literature to probe, discuss, and engage with contemporary books, award-winning authors, and the most pressing issues of our day. Authors will travel to thirteen events in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast, and more, amplifying literary discourse and bringing the excitement of the National Book Awards to all types of readers at festivals, campuses, and libraries.

 

The fall season of NBF Presents will include the return of partnerships with both the Brooklyn Book Festival (BKBF) and Miami Book Fair. At BKBF on September 16, National Book Awards authors Masha Gessen, Min Jin Lee, Shane McCrae, and Erika L. Sánchez will appear on the panel “NBF Presents: A Morning with the National Book Awards” to discuss craft, their work, and the Awards experience. Miami Book Fair will once again extend invitations to all Longlisted authors to take part in an Awards reading at the fair on November 16.

 

At the Decatur Book Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, the first of the season’s NBF Presents events, a panel on the intersection of democracy and literature will include Daniel Borzutzky, Nancy MacLean, and Jason Reynolds, who will discuss the role of literature in civic education and the importance of literary access to a thriving democracy, pulling from their unique perspectives as writers of different genres.

 

“We are ecstatic to work with the National Book Foundation this year,” said Julie Wilson, Executive Director of the AJC Decatur Book Festival. “The NBF Presents program highlights critical conversations about literature and our culture, which resonate so well with our attendees. We look forward to working together on more events in the future.”

 

In addition to appearances at book festivals throughout the country, NBF Presents events will be hosted at libraries and colleges in North Carolina, New Jersey, California, and Texas. In Greensboro, NC, historian Patricia Bell-Scott, whose book The Firebrand and the First Lady was longlisted for Nonfiction in 2016, will be in conversation with Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of Never Caught, a 2017 Nonfiction Finalist, on a panel titled “Unearthing Histories: A Conversation About Examining Legacies and Finding Truth.” The authors will appear at the Greensboro Public Library as well as North Carolina A&T State University.

 

“We are so excited to be hosting National Book Awards authors here in Greensboro,” said Brigitte Blanton, Library Director of the Greensboro Public Library. “It’s an incredible opportunity to have access to such prominent writers, and I know our community will be thrilled with the programming we are able to offer in partnership with the NBF Presents series.”

 

In 2019, the Foundation will continue partnerships with Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. These recurring campus events, presented under the program title NBA on Campus in years past and the inspiration for the expanded work through NBF Presents, will take place as part of NBF Presents in 2019. Next year’s lineup will also include the Eat, Drink & Be Literary series, presented since 2006 with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in addition to new events at venues across the country. The complete spring and summer seasons of NBF Presents will be announced in the new year.

 

The full list of confirmed fall NBF Presents events can be found below, with additional details forthcoming. An updated NBF Presents calendar will soon be available at the Foundation’s website.

 

NBF Presents Fall Schedule

 

September 2

Decatur Book Festival, Atlanta, GA

Democracy & Literature: A Conversation on Why Books Matter with National Book Awardhonored Authors

Are books and literature critical when it comes to protecting and cultivating our democracy? Come hear from three National Book Award–honored authors as they discuss the roles books have in our society. Can they influence the way we think as citizens? Can they contribute to our civic education? This panel will feature 2016 Poetry Winner Daniel Borzutzky (The Performance of Becoming Human), 2016 Young People’s Literature Finalist, 2017 Young People’s Literature Longlister Jason Reynolds (Ghost & Long Way Down), and 2017 Nonfiction Finalist Nancy MacLean (Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Steal Plan for America). Moderated by Pellom McDaniels III, Ph.D. from Emory University where he is the curator of African American collections in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.  

 

September 16

Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn, NY

A Morning with the National Book Awards

Come hear from a lineup of 2017 National Book Award–honored authors discussing their work, craft, and why literature matters. The panel includes Nonfiction Winner Masha Gessen (The Future Is History), Fiction Finalist Min Jin Lee (Pachinko), Poetry Finalist Shane McCrae (In the Language of My Captor), and Young People’s Literature Finalist Erika L. Sánchez (I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter). Ken Chen, a poet, lawyer, and the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, will moderate this panel.

 

October 13

Boston Book Festival, Boston, MA

Why Do Awards Matter?

In a world where we’ve seen a diversification of award winners in the US and beyond, what does this mean for the literary landscape and for writers themselves? How far have we come, how far do we have left to go, and how will this change writing and reading in the future? Featured in this conversation will be 2017 National Book Award–honored authors Danez Smith (Poetry Finalist, Don’t Call Us Dead), Carmen Maria Machado (Fiction Finalist, Her Body and Other Parties), and 2017 5 Under 35 honoree Lesley Nneka Arimah (What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky) as they discuss their work, achievements, and what awards and accolades mean for authors and readers.

 

October 14

Wisconsin Book Festival, Madison, WI

Making Sense of One Another: Literature and Connection  

In a country deeply divided by geography, politics, income, and so many other things, join the National Book Foundation at the Wisconsin Book Festival for a conversation exploring how fiction helps us to understand ourselves, our neighbors, and the world around us. Featuring 2015 National Book Award Fiction Finalist Karen Bender (Refund) and others.

 

October 15

Greensboro Public Library, Greensboro, NC

Unearthing Histories: A Conversation about Examining Legacies and Finding Truth with Patricia Bell-Scott and Erica Armstrong Dunbar

Join the National Book Foundation and the Greensboro Public Library for an evening with 2016 National Book Award Nonfiction Longlister Patricia Bell-Scott (The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice) and 2017 Nonfiction Finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge). These two scholars will come together for a discussion about their work to uncover the truth, cast a new light on lesser-known figures from the archives of American history, tell the stories of the marginalized and forgotten, and to deepen our understanding of the world we live in.

 

October 16

North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC

History as She Said with Patricia Bell-Scott and Erica Armstrong Dunbar

Join the National Book Foundation and North Carolina A&T State University for a discussion with 2016 National Book Award Nonfiction Longlister Patricia Bell-Scott (The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice) and 2017 Nonfiction Finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge). These authors will share their roles in elevating stories that have gone too long untold, explore why the stories of these women have been forgotten, why we need to remember them, and how their livessmall and largehelped to change the world.

 

October 24

Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, CA

Literature for Justice: Five Books that Will Change the Way We Think About Mass Incarceration
Literature can transform the way we look at the world, deepening our understanding of even the most complex issues of today. Recognizing the strength of the written word, the National Book Foundation is launching its Literature for Justice program, which is designed to bring broad awareness to the issue of mass incarceration in America through the power of books. Every year for the next three years the Foundation will announce a list of five books, selected by a committee of writers and experts, that will humanize, contextualize, and render more real the causes, consequences, and complexities of mass incarceration. Join us for the launch of this program at the Los Angeles Public Library, where committee members, authors, experts, activists, and other well-known figures will help announce these illuminating and urgent works. 2008 and 2013 National Book Award Fiction Finalist Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowers, Telex From Cuba) and 2016 Nonfiction Finalist Heather Ann Thompson (Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy) and others will join in for the launch. This event is made possible by the Art for Justice Fund.

 

October 27

Texas Book Festival, Austin, TX

An Afternoon with the National Book Awards

On the heels of bringing in a new group of honored authors at the upcoming 2018 National Book Awards, the Foundation continues to celebrate 2017 at the Texas Book Festival. Nonfiction Finalist David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Young People’s Literature Finalist Ibi Zoboi (American Street), and others will discuss their work, craft, and why literature matters.

 

November 11

Portland Book Festival, Portland, OR

An Evening with the National Book Awards

Awards season is here at last! Just four days before the 2018 National Book Awards, you’ll have a chance to join the National Book Foundation at the Portland Book Festival to hear from a panel of 2018 Awards Finalists and Longlisted authors (and maybe even forthcoming Winners!). The panel will include writers honored in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. They’ll be discussing their work, craft, and why literature matters for an evening that encapsulates the excellence of literature in America.  Panelists to be announced following the Longlist announcement.

 

November 13

The New School, New York City, NY

2018 National Book Awards Finalists Reading

Each fall, on the night before the National Book Awards, all of the Finalists gather at the New School to read from their honored titles at a signature Awards event that is open to the public. The 2018 reading will feature the Finalists in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Young People’s Literature, and the newly added category of Translated Literature. Hosted by Buzzfeed AM to DM’s Isaac Fitzgerald and Saeed Jones. Tickets are $10 to attend. This event is made possible by the New School.

 

November 16

Miami Book Fair, Miami, FL

An Evening with the National Book Awards Winners, Finalists, and Longlisters

Fresh from the 2018 National Book Awards, join the National Book Foundation at the Miami Book Fair for a special evening that highlights the best of contemporary literature in America. Every 2018 National Book Award Longlister, Finalist, and Winner is invited to Miami for a super-sized Awards reading—the first chance to hear from these honored authors following the whirlwind of the National Book Awards. The reading will feature recognized works from all Awards categories, including Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Young People’s Literature, and—for the first time—the new Translated Literature category. Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, will moderate the evening. This event is made possible by the generosity of the James L. Knight Foundation.

 

November 18

Houston Public Library, Houston, TX

Author in Focus: James Baldwin and His Literary Legacy

James Baldwin, whose remarkable work represents a significant contribution to the literary world, should be taught and read by all Americans. Yet this literary legend and four-time National Book Award Finalist is too often overlooked in our reading lists, lesson plans, and home libraries. Join the National Book Foundation at the Houston Public Library as it launches a new program celebrating the literary legacy and seminal works of James Baldwin and encouraging readers of today to pick up his books. The program will include a screening of the critically acclaimed film I Am Not Your Negro, and will include a discussion with noteworthy authors and Baldwin scholars (panelists to be announced) addressing the importance of Baldwin and his work’s lasting relevance.  This event was made possible by The Ford Foundation and Velvet Film.

 

December 5

Rutgers University, Camden, NJ

Democracy and Literature: A Conversation about Why Books Matter with National Book Awards Authors

What do authors see as the role of literature and books in our democracy? Through their writing, do authors actively work to influence the way we think? Do they see their work contributing to our civic education? Come hear National Book Award–honored authors discuss the role of books in exploring the themes and issues that are critical to protecting democracy. Panelists to be announced.

 

Unless otherwise noted, all programs made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

 

For times and locations for events, please visit www.nationalbook.org or the websites of any of our partners.

 

###

 

The mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture. In addition to the National Book Awards, for which it is best known, the Foundation’s programs include 5 Under 35, a celebration of emerging fiction writers selected by former National Book Award Finalists and Winners; NBF Presents, which brings NBA authors to universities, libraries, festivals, and conferences across the country; Literature for Justice, a project that uses literature to contextualize and humanize the issue of mass incarceration in America; Author in Focus, a series comprised of panels, lectures, and film screenings designed to connect a broad audience with the works of seminal NBF-honored authors, beginning with James Baldwin in 2018; the Innovations in Reading Prize, awarded to individuals and institutions that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading; the Why Reading Matters conference, an opportunity for writers, activists, educators, librarians, and nonprofit leaders to explore innovative ways to celebrate literature and expand its influence; Book Rich Environments, a partnership with HUD, the US Department of Education, the Urban Libraries Council, and the National Center for Families Learning, which has provided nearly 700,000 books to children and families in public housing authorities around the country; the Teen Press Conference, an opportunity for students to interview the current National Book Award Finalists in Young People’s Literature; Raising Readers, an adult-focused reading initiative to empower adults who work with and raise children to expand their own love of books and reading; and BookUp, a writer-led, after-school reading club for middle-school students.

 

The National Book Awards is one of the nation’s most prestigious literary prizes and has a stellar record of identifying and rewarding quality writing. In 1950, William Carlos Williams was the first Winner in Poetry, the following year William Faulkner was honored in Fiction, and so on through the years.  Many previous Winners of the National Book Award are now firmly established in the canon of American literature, including Ralph Ellison, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Flannery O’Connor, Adrienne Rich, and Jesmyn Ward.

NBF Announces Inaugural Literature for Justice Program Titles

Selected Reading titles for Literature for Justice

The National Book Foundation’s Literature for Justice program (LFJ) includes five contemporary titles that shed light on mass incarceration in the United States, selected independently by five committee members tasked with elevating the books’ visibility. This committee worked alongside the Foundation as part of a three-year campaign that seeks to contextualize and humanize the experiences of incarcerated people through literature of different genres, creating an accessible and visible collection of books crafted for broad public consumption.

These five titles will serve as the center for LFJ’s first year of programming that includes large-scale public events featuring authors and experts on mass incarceration, as well as digital assets like supplemental reading recommendations and further commentary from participating committee members. The selected books will be part of a larger, overarching narrative that will include 15 titles over three years, with five new committee members and titles each year.

The inaugural LFJ book selections seek to provide narratives from diverse perspectives and across genres. The five-title list comprises a book of poetry, a nonfiction collection of incarcerated women’s stories, an epistolary novel, a primer on the state of incarceration, and a memoir. Three of the titles on the list are written by authors who have previously been incarcerated.

Literature for Justice is made possible by a three-year grant from the Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

  • A Place to Stand, by Jimmy Santiago Baca (Grove Press, June 2002)
  • Shahid Reads His Own Palm, by Reginald Dwayne Betts (Alice James Books, June 2010)
  • Upstate: A Novelby Kalisha Buckhanon (St. Martin’s Press, January 2006)
  • Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time, by James Kilgore (The New Press, September 2015)
  • Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives From Women’s Prisons, edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi (Verso Books, July 2017)

Learn more about the Literature for Justice launch event in Los Angeles on October 24th here.