A pair of favorites (at least in my eyes) took home the fiction and non-fiction prizes at this year’s National Book Critics Circle Awards. Roberto Bolano’s 2666 won the fiction price, while Dexter Filkins’ The Forever War won for non-fiction.
Click here to read my recommendation of 2666. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)
Click here to read Tristan’s recommendation of The Forever War.
[The excellent blog Condalmo reports that Ariel Sabar has won the award for best autobiography for My Father's Paradise. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sabar at the SCIBA author's feast, and we hosted him back in December. Congratulations to him and to all the winners.]
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I know there isn’t space to mention all five of the winners in the blog post, but the fact that two poets (for the first time ever) are sharing the poetry prize seems worthy of mention. Why did the judges choose to call a tie? What, in fact, does a tie mean when judging such a prize? What makes the books so comparable in quality that no decisive winner could be chosen? Why was there no sudden-death shoot-out at the end of the match? No free-throw contest?
Molly,
Thanks for gently calling out my denigration of poetry. The truth is that I was trying to write that post as I was setting up for an event last night, and didn’t have time to unpack it as much as I’d have liked to.
Another issue that needs to be addressed — no women won in any of the categories. Now, I’m actually okay with this. It’s not that I don’t think women deserve to win awards – that would be ridiculous – but we’re talking about, what, five or six categories here. It’s too small of a sample. If the NBCC never awarded women, that would be something different, but to take this one year and say not enough women won. Last year, for instance, the NBCC winners included Edwidge Danticat, Harriet Washington, and Mary Jo Bang.
I’m curious, Molly, have you read these two poets? If so, who do you think should’ve won?
I must say I am blown away that a book written by a journalist, about the war, won this award. Clearly, there are better accounts out there written by men and women who lived the war – not observed it. Case in point, “House to House: A Soldier’s Memoir” by SSG David Bellavia. This young man is nominated for the medal of honor. His story is much more compelling than Filkins’ and extremely well written.
Robert,
While I agree that there are probably some excellent narratives by soldiers and/or former soldiers (I haven’t read House to House, although I hear good things about it), I will point out that they would likely fall into the autobiography category and be up against Sabar’s book. The Filkins book won for non-fiction.