Black-tie shebangs are thick on the calendar this time of year, with publishers scurrying from one award ceremony to the next, buoyed along by the hope of slapping those “Winner!” stickers on their authors’ books — or at least hoping to have a good meal and a quick exit from the fête du jour.
September brought The Lannan Literary Award, with prize money of $600,000, including a $200,000 Lifetime Achievement award to Robert Creeley. October heats up with the Frankfurt eBook Award, the first award designed to recognize achievements in the (slowly) emerging ebook industry. For those in the neighborhood, the winners of five awards will be announced on October 10 at the Frankfurt Opera House, with the Author’s Grand Prizes of $50,000 going to the best fiction and nonfiction ebooks. A children’s award will be presented in Bologna in April. See www.iebaf.org for details.
Then there’s the Booker, bestowed upon fiction writers from the UK and its empire, and the less-known Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The Booker prize money is a solid $30,000, plus the enticing chance to actually sell books on the strength of winning it. It is administered by the Book Trust, and is, of course, famous for its petulant jurists, and the professional betting that accompanies the release of its long- and shortlist (no longlist favorites actually made it to the shortlist this year, which includes The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert and Ali Smith’s Hotel World). See www.bookerprize.co.uk.
The Neustadt may lack the Booker’s buzz, but it carries a more than modest $50,000 in prize money (plus a replica of an eagle feather cast in silver, sure to excite every writer’s quill fetish). This is a biennial award (David Malouf won last year) sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today, the international literary quarterly founded in 1927 at OU. The award was created in 1969 as the “Books Abroad International Prize for Literature,” and has existed since under a variety of names. The 2002 winner will be announced at the Neustadt prize jury banquet this October 19. And coming at the end of the month is The Whiting Writers’ Award, given for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and playwright. In 2000 (for the 16th year in a row) ten new writers found themselves $35,000 richer for showing “talent and promise.” The winners are announced October 26; call 212 336-2138 for details.
Then there are the Nobel Prizes, celebrating their hundredth anniversary this year. The prize — for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace — consists of a medal, a personal diploma, and a prize of 10,000,000 kroner (around $1 million). Winners are announced in October and the awards ceremony is on December 10 in Stockholm. See www.nobel.se.
November brings (counting all the previous iterations) the 52nd annual National Book Awards, presented at a lavish dinner on November 14. The awards recognize achievement in four areas: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature. The winners are selected by a five-member, independent judging panel for each genre, and receive a $10,000 cash award and a crystal sculpture. The final shortlist (five finalists for each genre) is announced on October 11, and each shortlist winner receives a $1,000 prize. Call 212 685-0261 or go to www.nationalbook.org.
Last, least (monetarily), but newest, is the Mercantile Library’s Fadiman Award, named in honor of Clifton Fadiman, and presented to a living author of fiction whose book the jury feels is worthy of rediscovery. The $5,000 prize and medal is sponsored by Bookspan (Fadiman was a longtime judge of Book-of-the-Month). The jury is made up of committee members of the board, and they accept suggestions from the literary community at large. The award presentation is set to take place at the library’s annual benefit on November 13. Call 212 755-6710 for details.
