And the Winners Are....

On Tuesday November 17th at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street (New York City) Andy Borowitz, writer and comic, announced the winners of this year’s National Book Awards.

This year’s winner for fiction is Colum McGann, author of Let the Great World Spin, a novel created around Phillippe Petit’s intrepid tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, but focusing on life in New York City in the 1970s. McCann’s work has been called “dazzling and hauntingly rich.”

The non-fiction winner is T. J. Stiles for his biograpy of Cornelius Vanderbilt entitled The First Tycoon.

Poetry winner was Keith Waldrop for Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. For those of you who do not know, Mr. Waldrop is from Providence, RI. He has written over 15 books of poetry. He is also an actor, director and publisher. The young people’s literature award went to Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

For a list of all the finalists and winners plus links to interviews check out the National Book Foundation site. Meg