LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The 39th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded at the University of Southern California’s Bovard Auditorium.
The Book Prizes are committed to literary excellence, championing new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing from authors at all stages of their careers.
The ceremony recognized 11 outstanding literary works published last year. Terry Tempest Williams was honored with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, and Library of America received the Innovator’s Award for its contributions to America’s cultural heritage by preserving the nation’s writing and making it widely available.
2018 Book Prizes Winners:
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Nafissa Thompson-Spires, “Heads of the Colored People,” Atria / 37 INK
Biography: David W. Blight, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” Simon and Schuster
Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose: Kiese Laymon, “Heavy: An American Memoir,” Scribner
Current Interest: Francisco Cantú, “The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border,” Riverhead Books
Fiction: Rebecca Makkai, “The Great Believers: A Novel,” Viking
Graphic Novel/Comics: Tillie Walden, “On a Sunbeam,” First Second
History: Julia Boyd, “Travelers In The Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism 1919-1945,” Pegasus Books
Mystery/Thriller: Oyinkan Braithwaite, “My Sister, the Serial Killer,” Doubleday
Poetry: Carl Phillips, “Wild is the Wind: Poems,” Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Science & Technology: Beth Macy, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America,” Little, Brown and Company
Young Adult Literature: Elizabeth Acevedo, “The Poet X,” HarperTeen
The Book Prizes ceremony is a prologue to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the nation’s largest literary and cultural festival.
This year’s 24th annual festival will bring together more than 500 writers, musicians, artists and chefs, hundreds of exhibitors and an expected 1500,000 attendees on the USC campus.[the_ad id=”31605″]