Julie Otsuka accepted the $15,000 first prize at the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction on Saturday at the Folger Library in Washington. “The Buddha in the Attic,” her slim prose poem about Japanese picture brides coming to America after WWI, beat out works by literary giants Russell Banks, Anita Desai, Don DeLillo and Steven Millhauser.
Russell Banks, Steven Millhauser, Don DeLillo, Julia Otsuka and Steve Yarbrough at the PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony Saturday. (Ron Charles/Washington Post)
Otsuka and the finalists sat on the stage in the Folger’s Renaissance theatre, which is currently set as a 19th-century saloon for an upcoming production of “Taming of the Shrew.” A huge chandelier made from antlers hung over DeLillo’s head. Despite the Deadwood atmosphere, the evening showcased some of the most accomplished fiction writing in the country.
NPR journalist Scott Simon served as the master of ceremonies for the second year in a row. He made only oblique reference to the gunfight between bound books and e-books that is tearing apart the publishing community: “I do want to express my hope that we will not confuse the medium with the message.”
Significantly, though, the first corporation to receive thanks for its financial support of PEN/Faulkner was Amazon, which donated at least $20,000 to the organization this season. (A recent series of investigative stories in the Seattle Times, criticized the Internet retailer for its low profile in the philanthropic community.)
A PEN/Faulkner finalist twice before, Banks was the most relaxed of the authors on stage. In a strong, insistent voice, he read the opening pages of “Lost Memory of Skin,” his devastating novel about a young sex offender. Steve Yarbrough, one of the three judges, said in his introduction, “Banks shows no interest in avoiding moral questions.” His work is “tense, vivid and disturbing.” “Lost Memory of Skin” was the only traditional novel among the finalists this year.
Desai couldn’t make it to the ceremony, but the writer Manil Suri read a passage from one of the marvelous novellas in her nominated book, “The Artist of Disappearance.” Born in India, she is the only finalist also eligible for Britain’s Booker Prize, for which she’s been a finalist three times. (Her daughter, Kiran Desai, won the 2006 Booker Prize for “The Inheritance of Loss.”)
National Book Award-winner Don DeLillo seemed grim as he rose and walked to the microphone. Without acknowledging the lavish introduction he received, he immediately began reading from “The Angel Esmeralda,” his first and only collection of short stories. He might have been struggling with a cold; his voice sounded hoarse, and he stopped repeatedly to clear his throat.
Full story at The Washington Post
Russell Banks, Steven Millhauser, Don DeLillo, Julia Otsuka and Steve Yarbrough at the PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony Saturday. (Ron Charles/Washington Post)
Otsuka and the finalists sat on the stage in the Folger’s Renaissance theatre, which is currently set as a 19th-century saloon for an upcoming production of “Taming of the Shrew.” A huge chandelier made from antlers hung over DeLillo’s head. Despite the Deadwood atmosphere, the evening showcased some of the most accomplished fiction writing in the country.
NPR journalist Scott Simon served as the master of ceremonies for the second year in a row. He made only oblique reference to the gunfight between bound books and e-books that is tearing apart the publishing community: “I do want to express my hope that we will not confuse the medium with the message.”
Significantly, though, the first corporation to receive thanks for its financial support of PEN/Faulkner was Amazon, which donated at least $20,000 to the organization this season. (A recent series of investigative stories in the Seattle Times, criticized the Internet retailer for its low profile in the philanthropic community.)
A PEN/Faulkner finalist twice before, Banks was the most relaxed of the authors on stage. In a strong, insistent voice, he read the opening pages of “Lost Memory of Skin,” his devastating novel about a young sex offender. Steve Yarbrough, one of the three judges, said in his introduction, “Banks shows no interest in avoiding moral questions.” His work is “tense, vivid and disturbing.” “Lost Memory of Skin” was the only traditional novel among the finalists this year.
Desai couldn’t make it to the ceremony, but the writer Manil Suri read a passage from one of the marvelous novellas in her nominated book, “The Artist of Disappearance.” Born in India, she is the only finalist also eligible for Britain’s Booker Prize, for which she’s been a finalist three times. (Her daughter, Kiran Desai, won the 2006 Booker Prize for “The Inheritance of Loss.”)
National Book Award-winner Don DeLillo seemed grim as he rose and walked to the microphone. Without acknowledging the lavish introduction he received, he immediately began reading from “The Angel Esmeralda,” his first and only collection of short stories. He might have been struggling with a cold; his voice sounded hoarse, and he stopped repeatedly to clear his throat.
Full story at The Washington Post
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