The 2009 National Book Awards were presented in New York City on Wednesday evening. Author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter and political activist Gore Vidal received the award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Dave Eggers received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
Other recipients included:
- Fiction: Colum McCann – Let the Great World Spin (Random House)
- Non-Fiction: T.J. Stiles – The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Knopf)
- Young People’s Literature: Phillip Hoose – Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice FSG/Kroupa)
- Poetry: Keith Waldrop – Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (Univ. of California Press)
Each winner received $10,000. A full list of finalists and winners from the past 60 years can be found at the National Book Foundation’s website.
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The 2009 winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize was announced in Hong Kong on Monday. Chinese writer Su Tong was awarded US$10,000 for his novel The Boat to Redemption. The Prize was launched in 2007 and is presented annually to an Asian novel not yet published in English.
The other shortlisted novels include:
- Omair Ahmad, India – Jimmy the Terrorist
- Siddharth Chowdhury, India – The Descartes Highlands
- Nitasha Kaul, India – Residue
- Eric Gamalinda, The Philippines – Day Scholar
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