In the one surprise winner of the evening, the fiction award - expected by most folks to go to Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife) - went to Jesmyn Ward for Salvage the Bones. I am now speechless." Stephen Greenblatt, who won the nonfiction award for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, was astounded that he would win for "a book about a poem written 2,000 years ago. who were officially forced to be illiterate.
In accepting the poetry award to uproarious applause, Nikky Finney ( Head Off & Split) said, "Black people were the only people in the U.S.
On this night, you felt like one of the 1 percent.Ĭlose overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Swerve Subtitle How the World Became Modern Author Stephen Greenblatt This couldn't possibly be where writers would gather, could it? Just two blocks away was Zuccotti Park, with just 20 protestors remaining. John Lithgow, the host, joked that when he walked in, he turned right around. In the balcony above, waiters pass around cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Dozens of tables, each set for a dozen guests, fill the floor. You walk into a glorious room of white marble columns and arches. The event has been held for the last three years at Cipriani at Wall Street, a Greek-revival building that over the years has been occupied by the New York Merchants Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange and the United States Customs House. I have attended most of the NBA ceremonies over the last 10 years, and each time, when the appointed night arrives, the publishing industry puts away the controversy and puts on its best manners. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. She wrote, "The National Book Award in fiction, more than any other American literary prize, illustrates the ever-broadening cultural gap between the literary community and the reading public." An arguable point.Ĭlose overlay Buy Featured Book Title Salvage the Bones Author Jesmyn Ward This year, Laura Miller at accused the judges of overlooking such well-known books as The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach and The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, in favor of small-press books (with the exception of Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife). In a celebratory National Book Awards on Wall Street last night, Stephen Greenblatt took the nonfiction award for Swerve, while, in a surprise turn in fiction, Jesmyn Ward won for Salvage the Bones.Įveryone loves to gripe about the National Book Award judges - for nominating only women, for not including genre or mainstream fiction, for selecting too-obvious titles, for omitting big-hitting literary names. Jesmyn Ward, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction for her book Salvage the Bones, poses at the National Book Awards Wednesday night.
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