Finalists include Michael Ondaatje, Ha Jin, Adam Hochschild;
Winners to be honored at gala Dayton ceremony on November 11th
Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. The Prize celebrates the power of literature to promote peace, social justice, and global understanding.
The 2012 shortlist includes works by bestselling authors (The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje, Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin, To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild), first-time novelists (The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak), and a National Book Award winner (Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward).
The 2012 finalists explore a diverse range of challenging issues ranging from the damaging ripple effects of personal grief (The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen), to the long-term impact of war on both soldiers and civilians (What Is It Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes, Shards by Ismet Prcic). Two of this year’s nonfiction finalists also highlight the untold stories of women who have worked for peace and justice – from the Holocaust (A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead) to the Liberian revolution (Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee).
The shortlisted books are set in locations around the world, from Baghdad and Beirut (Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo) to Mississippi (Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward) to Bosnia and California (Shards by Ismet Prcic).
The full list of finalists can be found below and at: www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org.
A winner and runner-up in fiction and nonfiction will be announced on September 24th. Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $1,000.00. They will be honored at a gala ceremony hosted by award-winning journalist Nick Clooney in Dayton on Sunday, November 11th.
Organizers announced in July that author Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods, Going After Cacciato) will be the recipient of the 2012 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, formerly known as the Lifetime Achievement Award and renamed last year in honor of the celebrated U.S. diplomat. Previous winners include Studs Terkel (2006), Elie Wiesel (2007), Taylor Branch (2008), Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2009), Geraldine Brooks (2010), and Barbara Kingsolver (2011).
"This year’s finalists examine conflict and the need for tolerance across the spectrum of relationships, from family members to passengers on a ship to citizens of a country at war," said Sharon Rab, chair of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. “Each work, in its own way, reminds us that our lives are filled with moral dilemmas every day, and each work offers an inspiring model to look to as we address them.”
The 2012 Dayton Literary Peace Prize fiction finalists are:
- Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin (Pantheon Books): The
award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash returns to his
homeland in a searing new novel that unfurls during one of the darkest moments
of the twentieth century: the Rape of Nanjing.
- Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury): A
big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a
wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of poverty in
rural Mississippi, Salvage the Bones won the National Book Award for
fiction.
- Shards by Ismet Prcic (Grove Atlantic): A harrowing
coming-of-age novel about a young Bosnian, also named Ismet Prcic, who flees his
war-torn homeland and struggles to reconcile his past with his present life in
California.
- The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje (Knopf): The
Cat’s Table is a spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden,
discoveries of childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a
spectacular sea voyage from Sri Lanka to London.
- The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen (Riverhead):
The Grief of Others is a beautifully moving family drama about love, loss and
healing in the aftermath of a newborn's death.
- The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak (Bellevue Literary Press): A stirring novel of brotherhood, survival, and coming-of-age during World War One.
- A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead (HarperCollins):
A Train in Winter tells the tale of 230 French women who were sent to
Auschwitz for daring to oppose the Nazis, offering a fascinating glimpse of a
little-known chapter in the history of World War II.
- Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo (Free Press): Day of
Honey is a beautifully written, fiercely intelligent memoir exploring the
heightened meaning of cooking in war-torn Baghdad and Beirut.
- Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee (The Perseus
Books Group): In a time of death and terror, Leymah Gbowee brought Liberia’s
women together—and together they led a nation to peace.
- To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt): Hochschild brings World War I to life as never before by focusing on
the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and
heroes.
- What Is It Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes (Grove/Atlantic): Marlantes draws on his own experiences during and after the Vietnam War in this deeply personal and candid look at the ordeal of combat and its aftermath on the individuals who endure it.
To be eligible for the 2012 awards, English-language books must be published or translated into English in 2011 and address the theme of peace on a variety of levels, such as between individuals, among families and communities, or among nations, religions, or ethnic groups.
About the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
The
Dayton Literary Peace Prize honors writers whose work uses the power of
literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding. Launched
in 2006, it has already established itself as one of the world’s most
prestigious literary honors, and is the only literary peace prize awarded in the
United States. As an offshoot of the Dayton Peace Prize, the Dayton Literary
Peace Prize awards a $10,000 cash prize each year to one fiction and one
nonfiction author whose work advances peace as a solution to conflict, and leads
readers to a better understanding of other cultures, peoples, religions, and
political points of view. An annual lifetime achievement award, renamed the
Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011, is also bestowed
upon a writer whose body of work reflects the Prize's mission; previous honorees
include Studs Terkel, Elie Wiesel, Taylor Branch, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl
WuDunn, Geraldine Brooks, and Barbara Kingsolver.
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