Year: 2022

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Seth Meyers to honor Elaine May, Ngugi wa Thiong’o at PEN America Literary Awards

The first in-person PEN awards ceremony since the pandemic began in 2020 will honor the winners of PEN’s career-achievement awards: Broadway and Hollywood icon Elaine May will receive the $25,000 PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award, named in honor of her long-ago partner in comedy. Acclaimed Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of “A Grain of Wheat” and “Weep Not, Child” and a perennial Nobel Prize contender, will take home the $50,000 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. And Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, writer of “Fairview” and “Marys Seacole,” will be presented the $10,000 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award. Read more

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‘Uplifting’ book of sonnets by Hannah Lowe wins Costa book of the year

Judges said The Kids was “a book to fall in love with”. “It’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal,” said chair of judges, the BBC News journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti. “It’s crafted and skilful but also accessible.” Read more

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American Injustice: Inside Stories from the Underbelly of the Criminal Justice System

Defense attorney Rudolf debuts with a searing look at systemic failures in the U.S. justice system. He notes that over the past three decades, nearly 3,000 people were exonerated and released from prison for crimes they had not committed, and delves into the factors behind these false convictions, including racial bias; the so-called trial penalty, which incentivizes defendants to plead guilty in order to avoid the likelihood of a harsher sentence should they be convicted at trial; and a reliance on suspect testimony. Rudolf also documents shortcomings in forensic science… Read more

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Sex writing as literary parlor game? Why 27 writers decided to bare (almost) all

A bold and playful collection of erotic stories written by some of the world’s finest writers. The twist? Each story is “anonymous,” allowing for tales as subtle or explicit, strange or familiar, tender or fierce as each writer wishes–leaving readers to guess who wrote what. Read more

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School Board in Tennessee Bans Teaching of Holocaust Novel ‘Maus’

A school board in Tennessee voted unanimously this month to ban “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from being taught in its classrooms because the book contains material that board members said was inappropriate for students. Read more

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2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal Winners Announced

The American Library Association (ALA) has selected The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu (Little, Brown and Company) by Tom Lin as the winner of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance (Random House) by Hanif Abdurraqib as the winner of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Read more

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The 2022 Newbery and Caldecott Medal winners honor tales about the apocalypse, heritage and history

The literacy nonprofit’s awards, which include the Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal and Coretta Scott King Awards, honor the best in children’s and young adult literature, from picture books to novels. And this year’s winners, announced Monday during a livestreamed ceremony, represent a wide spectrum of experiences and backgrounds. Read more

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