By John Williams
Jack Livings won the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction on Monday night, for “The Dog,” a collection of stories set in China, where Mr. Livings lived for a time during the 1990s.
In her review in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called the collection “stunning,” and wrote: “Together, his tales open a prismatic window on China, showing us how part of the country is rushing to embrace the 21st century, even as its history continues to exert a magnetic hold over people’s thinking and expectations.”
The PEN American Center, the literary and human rights organization, handed out several other prizes during Monday’s ceremony at the New School, including its Open Book Award, which went to the poet Claudia Rankine for “Citizen.” Ms. Rankine’s book combines poetry, prose and art in commenting on racism in America. Ian Buruma took home the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for “Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War,” about German and Japanese artistic responses to World War II.
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