A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author .
59-726: The National Book Awards ( NBA ) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards . At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The National Book Awards were established in 1936 by the American Booksellers Association , abandoned during World War II , and re-established by three book industry organizations in 1950. Non-U.S. authors and publishers were eligible for
118-702: A bronze sculpture. The first National Book Awards were presented in May 1936 at the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association , one month after The New York Times reported institution of the "new annual award". The winners were authors of four 1935 books selected by a vote of ABA members. Virginia Kirkus chaired the central committee of seven including the ABA president, three bookshops, Publishers Weekly , and American News Company . Three were called "the most distinguished of 1935" (novel, biography, and general nonfiction) and one "the most original" (novel). Two of
177-723: A crime but actually the attitude of the President of the United States and the greater part of his Administration?", he said. Nevertheless, Cowley resigned two months later, vowing to never write about politics again. In 1944, having been more or less silenced politically, Cowley began a career as a literary advisor, editor, and talent scout at Viking Press. He was hired to work on the Portable Library series, which had started in 1943 with As You Were: A Portable Library of American Prose and Poetry Assembled for Members of
236-579: A dramatic revaluation of Faulkner's position in American letters, enlisting him as an honorary member of the Lost Generation. Robert Penn Warren called The Portable Faulkner the "great watershed" moment for Faulkner's reputation, and many scholars view Cowley's essay as having resuscitated Faulkner's career. Faulkner won a Nobel Prize in 1949. He later said, "I owe Malcolm Cowley the kind of debt no man could ever repay". Cowley then published
295-698: A greater guarantee of reading pleasure than any other literary prizes. In January 1950 three book industry organizations announced that "works by Americans published here" would be recognized by three awards in March (at the annual convention?). There would be three distinct panels of five judges. The fifteen judges were "Elmer Davis, John Kieran, Henry Steele Commager, Fairfield Osborn and Norman Cousins for non-fiction; Mary Colum, Glenway Wescott, Max Gissin, W. G. Rogers and Malcolm Cowley for fiction; and W. H. Auden, Louise Bogan, Babett Duetsch, Horace Gregory and Louise Untermeyer for poetry." The awards were administered by
354-457: A nomination in the spring and mail copies to the panelists. The panelists read all the valid nominees during this time, and the panels compile shortlists in September. The pre-war awards were announced in the winter, usually February, and described with reference to the year of publication, if any; for example, "National Book Awards for 1939" announced February 1940. The 1950 to 1983 awards, as
413-416: A revised edition of Exile's Return in 1951. The revisions downplayed some of the more overtly Marxist tenets, and more obviously emphasized the return of the exile as a necessary step toward reestablishing a nation's solidarity: "the old pattern of alienation and reintegration, or departure and return, that is repeated in scores of European myths and continually re-embodied in life", Cowley wrote. This time
472-583: A translation award from 1967-1983, but did not require the author to be living and was for fiction only. In 2024, the National Book Foundation announced the awards would no longer require U.S. citizenship for eligibility, following a similar decision the Pulitzer Prizes had made in 2023. A book must be published "between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year" to be eligible. Its publisher must complete
531-919: The American Field Service during World War I to drive ambulances and munitions trucks for the French army. He returned to Harvard in 1919 and became editor of The Harvard Advocate . He graduated with a B.A. in 1920. Cowley was one of the many literary and artistic figures who migrated to Paris in the 1920s. He became one of the best-known chroniclers of the American expatriates in Europe, as he frequently spent time with writers like Ernest Hemingway , F. Scott Fitzgerald , John Dos Passos , Ezra Pound , Gertrude Stein , E. E. Cummings , Edmund Wilson , Erskine Caldwell , and others associated with American literary modernism . In Blue Juniata , Cowley described these Americans who travelled abroad during
590-484: The East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh , where his father, William, was a homeopathic doctor. Cowley attended Shakespeare Street elementary school and in 1915 graduated from Peabody High School , where his boyhood friend Kenneth Burke was also a student. Cowley's first published writing appeared in his high school newspaper. He attended Harvard University , but his studies were interrupted when he joined
649-1019: The Miguel de Cervantes Prize ( Spanish ); the Camões Prize ( Portuguese ); the Booker Prize , The Writers' Prize , the Pulitzer Prize and the Hugo Award ( English ). Other international literary prizes include the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Franz Kafka Prize , and the Jerusalem Prize . The International Dublin Literary Award is given to writers, as well as to the translator(s) if
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#1732779822562708-636: The National Book Award for Translated Literature , was added in 2018, recognizing works in translation for the first time since 1983. At the National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner held in New York City each November, the chair of each judging panel announces the winners of the year's National Book Awards. Each finalist receives $ 1,000, a medal, and a citation written by the judging panel; winners get $ 10,000 and
767-525: The Pulitzer Prizes (not yet announced in February 1938) as potential ratifications. "Unlike the Pulitzer Prize committee, the booksellers merely vote for their favorite books. They do not say it is the best book or the one that will elevate the standard of manhood or womanhood. Twenty years from now we can decide which are the masterpieces. This year we can only decide which books we enjoyed reading
826-477: The U.S. Communist Party . In 1929, Cowley became an associate editor of the left-leaning magazine The New Republic , which he steered in "a resolutely communist direction" The same year, he translated and wrote a foreword to the 1913 French novel 'La Colline Inspirée', by Maurice Barrès . By the early 1930s, Cowley became increasingly involved in radical politics. In 1932, he joined Edmund Wilson, Mary Heaton Vorse , and Waldo Frank as union-sponsored observers of
885-476: The avant-garde sensibilities of Dada , and also, like many other intellectuals of the period, to Marxism and its attempts to demystify the socioeconomic and political conditions that had plunged Europe into a devastating war. He travelled frequently between Paris and Greenwich Village in New York, and through these intersecting social circles came into close proximity, though he never officially joined, with
944-544: The one-year category Autobiography . When The Portable Malcolm Cowley (Donald Faulkner, editor) was published in 1990, the year after Cowley's death, Michael Rogers wrote in Library Journal : "Though a respected name in hardcore literary circles, in general the late Cowley is one of the unsung heroes of 20th-century American literature. Poet, critic, Boswell of the Lost Generation of which he himself
1003-468: The "National Book Awards" were canceled and replaced by "American Book Awards" on the film industry model (Oscars). "It will be run almost exactly the way the Academy Awards are run," a spokesman told reporters." There would be nearly 30 awards presented in an extravagant TV-friendly ceremony, to winners selected by a standing "academy" of more than 2,000 people in the book industry. Implementation
1062-541: The "National" award returned in name. Covering the November ceremony, Edwin McDowell of The New York Times remarked upon the recurring changes in format and contrasted 1983 in particular, when there were 96 finalists in 27 awards categories (listed above). The surviving awards for general Fiction and Nonfiction , now with precisely five finalists each, were administered by National Book Awards, Inc., whose Chairman of
1121-434: The "pathos of understatement" and "the value of craft as represented by the practice of multiple revision". The Portable Hemingway sold so well that Cowley was able to convince Viking to publish a Portable Faulkner in 1946. William Faulkner was, at the time, slipping into literary obscurity. By the 1930s, he was working as a Hollywood screenwriter and in danger of seeing his works go out of print. Cowley again argued for
1180-617: The 1937/38 cycle, ballots were received from 319 stores, triple the number who voted in the first rendition early in 1936. In a 1941 advertisement, the Booksellers described the "significance of the awards" thus: In effect, his ballot says, "Of all the books of the year these are the three I enjoyed most – in two ways ! I enjoyed reading them; and I enjoyed selling them." And that to a bookseller means people who, on his recommendation, read and enjoyed – and sent in other people who also read and enjoyed. The National Book Awards give you perhaps
1239-738: The AAP Board voted to fund a new version of the Awards, which had been "close to expiring from lack of support". At the time, AAP and Harper & Row president Brooks Thomas anticipated "probably fewer than ten" categories, including some "only for original paperbacks, not reprints". Edwin McDowell reported that "many book-industry officials hope ... [to] rank in importance with the $ 15,000 Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction " (British). For 1983 publications (January to October) there would be no awards. A committee comprising American Book Awards executive director Barbara Prete and four publishers designed
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#17327798225621298-516: The Armed Forces and Merchant Marine . In its inception, the Portable Library was an anthology of paperback reprints that could be mass-produced cheaply and marketed to military personnel. It also emphasized an American literary tradition that could be construed as patriotic during wartime. Yet Cowley was able to steer the series toward what were, in his esteem, underappreciated writers. He first set out to edit The Portable Hemingway (1944). At
1357-473: The Board was the president of Hearst Trade Book Group. He declaimed that "Book people are really not actors, and there's a realization now that we should not try to reward things like who did the best book blurb." The fixed number five finalists was retained through 2012, while the number of book categories has doubled with the addition of Poetry in 1991 and Young People's Literature in 1996. Beginning with 2013,
1416-551: The Foundation announced there would be a "longlist" of 10 titles in each of the four categories in September (40 titles), followed by a "finalist" list of 5 titles in October (20 titles), and then the winners in November (4 titles). In 2018 a fifth award category was announced, the National Book Award for Translated Literature . It is for living translators and authors and for fiction and non-fiction. The foundation previously gave
1475-478: The Foundation at the final ceremony for the Book Awards. The medal comes with a cash prize of $ 10,000. It recognizes someone who "has enriched [American] literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work." Five of the seventeen medalists through 2004 were previous National Book Award winners (Bellow, Welty, McCullough, Updike, and Roth, all but McCullough for fiction). Between 2005 and 2018, all of
1534-739: The National Book Committee from 1950 to 1974, when the Committee disbanded after publishers withdrew support. In 1950 and 1967, at least, the prize sponsors were three book-industry organizations American Booksellers Association, the American Book Publishers Council and the Book Manufacturers Institute . In 1973 NYTimes still called the National Book Committee a nonprofit funded "by publishers and by organizations involved in
1593-413: The National Book Committee was disbanded. In 1975 the temporary administrator"begged" judges not to split awards. Three of 27 awards were split in 1983 before the drastic cutback that also required selection of a single winner in all three categories for 1984. The currently active Poetry category was added in 1991, followed by Young People's Literature in 1996, and Translated Literature in 2018. In 1980
1652-457: The National Book Foundation labeled them, were presented in the spring to works published during the preceding calendar year. Since 1984 the NBA have been presented in the fall, usually November, to books published roughly during the calendar year (December of the previous year through November). The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters is a lifetime achievement award presented by
1711-792: The War Department's Office of Facts and Figures (precursor to the Office of War Information ). MacLeish recruited Cowley as an analyst. This decision resulted in anti-communist journalists such as Whittaker Chambers and Westbrook Pegler publicly exposing Cowley's left-wing sympathies. Cowley soon found himself in the crosshairs of congressman Martin Dies (D-Tex.) and the House Un-American Activities Committee . Dies accused Cowley of belonging to seventy-two communist or communist-front organizations. This number
1770-465: The audience for literature and to enhance the cultural value of literature in America." Literary awards Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony . Many awards are structured with one organization (usually a non-profit organization) as the presenter and public face of the award, and another organization as the financial sponsor or backer, who pays the prize remuneration and
1829-631: The best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture." In 2018, there were 1,637 books nominated for the five award categories, led by the Nonfiction category with 546 nominations. The 2018 ceremony was held on November 14 in New York City. National Book Awards are given to one book (author) annually in each of five categories: fiction , nonfiction , poetry , translation , and young people's literature . There have previously been many other categories but they have been retired or subsumed in
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1888-482: The best winner. Sometimes juries can not decide between two contentious books so they will compromise with a third inoffensive bland book. He says there are now so many awards and prizes it has diluted the prestige of being a prize-winning book. Flanagan clarifies he is not against literary awards, but believes they should not be taken too seriously as a form of support for literary culture. Malcolm Cowley Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989)
1947-758: The book chosen was written in a language other than English. Spoof awards include: The Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award , the Bookseller /Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year , and the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction and Lyttle Lytton Contests , given to deliberately bad grammar There are also literary awards targeted specifically to encourage the writing from African American origin and authors of African descent. Two of these awards are Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence , which
2006-645: The book sold much better. Cowley also published a Portable Hawthorne (1948), The Literary Tradition (1954), and edited a new edition of Leaves of Grass (1959), by Walt Whitman. These were followed by Black Cargoes, A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1962), Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age (1966), Think Back on Us (1967), Collected Poems (1968), Lesson of the Masters (1971) and A Second Flowering (1973). Cowley taught creative writing at
2065-401: The book trade" A temporary Committee on Awards Policy handled 1975. In 1964 Nonfiction was divided in three. The National Book Award for Translation was introduced in 1967 and split between two books, the first split. Children's literature was first recognized as one of seven categories in 1969. Two awards were split in 1973 for the first time. Publishers dropped their support after 1974 and
2124-617: The books were advertised by their publishers as "The most distinguished autobiography of 1935" and "The most distinguished general non-fiction book of 1935" in NYTimes on May 12, the same day that the newspaper reported yesterday's awards. For the next six years, 1937 to 1942, the awards were announced from mid-February to early March. The "Most Distinguished" Nonfiction, Biography, and Novel (for 1935 and 1936) were reduced to two and termed "Favorite" Nonfiction and Fiction beginning 1937. Master of ceremonies Clifton Fadiman declined to consider
2183-634: The college-level beginning in the 1950s. Among his students were Larry McMurtry , Peter S. Beagle , Wendell Berry , as well as Ken Kesey , whose One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) Cowley helped publish at Viking. Writing workshops were a recent development at the time (the Iowa Writers' Workshop was founded in 1936), yet by midcentury their proliferation was of note for both writers and publishers. Cowley taught also at Yale, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, California at Irvine and Berkeley, and even
2242-500: The cost of the ceremony and public relations, typically a corporate sponsor who may sometimes attach their name to the award (such as the Orange Prize ). There are awards for various writing formats including poetry and novels . Many awards are also dedicated to a certain genre of fiction or non-fiction writing (such as science fiction or politics ). There are also awards dedicated to works in individual languages, such as
2301-465: The description, "that American poet with a pile of saucers in front of him and a stupid look on his potato face talking about the Dada movement". John Dos Passos's private correspondence revealed the contempt he held for Cowley, but also the care writers took to hide their personal feelings in order to protect their careers once Cowley had become an editor of The New Republic . Regardless, Exile's Return
2360-551: The early 1960s, is said to have had a similar effect on Anderson's reputation. Other works of literary and critical importance include Eight More Harvard Poets (1923), A Second Flowering: Works & Days of the Lost Generation (1973), And I Worked at the Writer's Trade (1978), and The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Remembering the 1930s (1980). And I Worked won a 1980 U.S. National Book Award in
2419-573: The existing five. The National Book Foundation also presents two lifetime achievement awards each year: the "Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters" and the "Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community". Only publishers nominate books for the National Book Awards, but panelists may request particular nominations from publishers. Each panel comprises five judges, including writers, librarians, booksellers, and literary critics. In 2013,
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2478-452: The judging panels were expanded to include experts in the literary field in addition to established writers. Each panel considers hundreds of books each year in each of the five categories. In 2013, the Foundation announced the addition of a National Book Awards longlist—announced in September and consisting of ten titles per category—to precede the finalists list, announced in October and comprising five titles per category. The fifth category,
2537-423: The medalists except Leonard and Allende have been previous National Book Award winners. The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community is a lifetime achievement award presented by the Foundation annually from 2005. It recognizes "an individual for outstanding service to the American literary community, whose life and work exemplify the goals of the National Book Foundation to expand
2596-641: The miners' strikes in Kentucky. Their lives were threatened by the mines' owners, and Frank was badly beaten. When Exile's Return was first published in 1934, it put forth a distinctly Marxist interpretation of history and social struggle. In 1935, Cowley helped to establish a leftist collective, The League of American Writers . Other notable members included Archibald MacLeish , Upton Sinclair , Clifford Odets , Langston Hughes , Carl Sandburg , Carl Van Doren , Waldo Frank, David Ogden Stewart , John Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman , and Dashiell Hammett . Cowley
2655-489: The most." The Bookseller Discovery officially recognized "outstanding merit which failed to receive adequate sales and recognition" (quoted by NYT) Finally that award stood alone for 1941 and the New York Times frankly called it "a sort of consolation prize that the booksellers hope will draw attention to his work." The winning authors and books were selected by a nationwide poll of booksellers (ABA members); during
2714-424: The new and improved program, implemented fall 1984 for a publication year beginning November 1983. They cut the roster to merely three (Nonfiction, Fiction, and First Work of Fiction), moved the ceremony from early spring to late fall, and redefined eligibility to require publication during the calendar year of the awards (roughly, see Annual eligibility). There were only fiction and nonfiction awards in 1986. In 1987
2773-546: The postwar period as a "wandering, landless, uprooted generation"; similarly Hemingway, claiming to have taken the phrase from Gertrude Stein, called them the "lost generation". This sense of uprootedness deeply affected Cowley's appreciation for the necessities of artistic freedom. It moreover informed his ideal of cosmopolitanism in contrast to the fervent nationalism (s) that had led to World War I. Cowley recounted his experiences in Exile's Return , writing, "our whole training
2832-407: The pre-war awards. Since then they are presented to U.S. authors for books published in the United States roughly during the award year. The nonprofit National Book Foundation was established in 1988 to administer and enhance the National Book Awards and "move beyond [them] into the fields of education and literacy", primarily by sponsoring public appearances by writers. Its mission is "to celebrate
2891-505: The prestigious Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, among other places, but he seldom maintained a full-time teaching appointment. Literary and cultural critic Benjamin Kirbach argues that this flitting back-and-forth between universities and the publishing industry allowed Cowley to reconcile his cosmopolitan ideal within the constraints of the academy. Kirbach writes: "Cowley's itinerancy—his seemingly effortless movement between universities and
2950-671: The publishing industry, between writers individual and collective—played a crucial role in institutionalizing [literary] modernism" in the twentieth century. As an editorial consultant to Viking Press, he pushed for the publication of Jack Kerouac 's On the Road . Cowley's work anthologizing 28 Fitzgerald short stories and editing a reissue of Tender Is the Night , restructured based on Fitzgerald's notes, both in 1951, were key to reviving Fitzgerald's reputation as well, and his introduction to Sherwood Anderson 's Winesburg, Ohio , written in
3009-464: The time, Hemingway was largely considered to be a sparse and simplistic writer. Cowley departed from this perception in his introductory essay, claiming instead that Hemingway could be read as tortured and submerged. This revaluation remains the dominant critical opinion today. Literary critic Mark McGurl argues that Hemingway's tip-of-the-iceberg style has become one of the most emulated in twentieth-century American prose, his name all but synonymous with
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#17327798225623068-722: Was a member, savior of Faulkner's dwindling reputation, editor of Kerouac's On the Road, discoverer of John Cheever, Cowley knew everybody and wrote about them with sharp insight. . . . . Cowley's writings on the great books are as important as the books themselves . . . . All American literature collections should own this." To the end, Cowley remained a humanitarian in the world of letters. He wrote writer Louise Bogan in 1941, "I'm almost getting pathologically tender-hearted. I have been caused so much pain by reviewers and political allrightniks of several shades of opinion that I don't want to cause pain to anybody." Cowley married artist Peggy Baird ; they were divorced in 1931. His second wife
3127-526: Was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic . His best known works include his first book of poetry, Blue Juniata (1929), and his memoir, Exile's Return (1934; rev. 1951), written as a chronicler and fellow traveller of the Lost Generation and an influential editor and talent scout at Viking Press . Cowley was born August 24, 1898, in Belsano, Cambria County, Pennsylvania , to William Cowley and Josephine Hutmacher. He grew up in
3186-857: Was appointed Vice President, and over the next few years became involved in numerous campaigns, including attempts to persuade the United States government to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War . He resigned in 1940, owing to concerns that the organization was too heavily influenced by the Communist Party. In 1941, near the outset of the United States' involvement in World War II , President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Cowley's associate, poet and " popular front " interventionist Archibald MacLeish, as head of
3245-521: Was certainly an exaggeration, but Cowley had no recourse to deny it. MacLeish soon came under pressure from J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to dismiss Cowley. In January 1942, MacLeish sent his reply that the FBI needed a course of instruction in history. "Don't you think it would be a good thing if all investigators could be made to understand that Liberalism is not only not
3304-767: Was established in 2007 by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation , and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award , which is a given by the National Community of Black Writers. Australian author Richard Flanagan wrote a critique of literary awards, saying "National prizes are often a barometer of bourgeois bad taste." He says juries can be influenced by vendettas, paybacks and payoffs, "most judges are fair-minded people. But hate, conceit and jealousy are no less human attributes than wisdom, judgment and knowledge." Book prizes will sometimes compete with one another, and these goals do not always coincide with anointing
3363-419: Was involuntarily directed toward destroying whatever roots we had in the soil, toward eradicating our local and regional peculiarities, toward making us homeless citizens of the world". While Cowley associated with many American writers in Europe, the sense of admiration was not always mutual. Hemingway removed direct reference to Cowley in a later version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro , replacing his name with
3422-495: Was one of the first autobiographical texts to foreground the American expatriate experience. Despite not selling well during its first publication, it established Cowley as one of the most trenchant emissaries of the Lost Generation. Literary historian Van Wyck Brooks described Exile's Return as "an irreplaceable literary record of the most dramatic period in American literary history." While in Paris, Cowley found himself drawn to
3481-495: Was poor, the episode a disaster. Most new categories survived only one to four cycles, 1980 to 1983. There were seven awards categories in 1979, twenty-eight in 1980, nineteen in 1983 (plus graphics awards, see below), three in 1984. In 1983 there were 30 award winners in 27 categories including 14 categories of literary achievement in writing for adults; in turn, five for hardcover editions, six for paperback editions, and three general. 1983 awards categories (27) Late that year,
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