nbcc awards announced
This past Thursday, the National Book Critics Circle gave out its annual awards for books published in 2008. Narrowed down from the impressive shortlist, here are the winners:
Fiction: Roberto Bolaño, 2666. FSG
General Nonfiction: Dexter Filkins, The Forever War. Knopf
Biography: Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul. Knopf
Autobiography: Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. Algonquin
Criticism: Seth Lerer, Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter. University of Chicago Press
Poetry: August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. FSG; and Juan Felipe Herrera, Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. University of Arizona Press
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: Ron Charles
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award: PEN American Center
I'm really only familiar with 2666 (although I've seen the Naipaul biography in bookshops), across categories and within the fiction category, but it was a ringer for winning this one. Its release last year was a monumental event, and bloggers and critics went nuts over it; I would have been truly shocked had it not won.
The NBCC's press release on the awards ceremony can be found at Critical Mass.
Fiction: Roberto Bolaño, 2666. FSG
General Nonfiction: Dexter Filkins, The Forever War. Knopf
Biography: Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul. Knopf
Autobiography: Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. Algonquin
Criticism: Seth Lerer, Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter. University of Chicago Press
Poetry: August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. FSG; and Juan Felipe Herrera, Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. University of Arizona Press
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: Ron Charles
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award: PEN American Center
I'm really only familiar with 2666 (although I've seen the Naipaul biography in bookshops), across categories and within the fiction category, but it was a ringer for winning this one. Its release last year was a monumental event, and bloggers and critics went nuts over it; I would have been truly shocked had it not won.
The NBCC's press release on the awards ceremony can be found at Critical Mass.