Los Angeles Times announces 2008 book prize nominees

Today the Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominees and Kirsch Award winner were announced. All awards will be presented in a ceremony on April 24, kicking off the L.A. Times Festival of Books.

Robert Alter, the author of 22 acclaimed works on the Bible, literary modernism and contemporary Hebrew literature will be the 29th recipient of the Kirsch Award. A professor at UC Berkeley, Alter began writing about the Bible as literature in the 1970s as a side project, but, he told the Boston Globe in 2007, "I found the intrinsic literary and intellectual interest of the biblical stories and poems so compelling that I've kept working at it ever since."

There are nine competitive award categories — biography, current interest, fiction, the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, young adult — each with five nominees. The nominees include those that were in the running for other awards, including the Booker and the National Book Award, as well as some that are making their awards-list debut. The complete list of the 45 nominees for the L.A. Times Book Prizes are after the jump.

PEN World Voices speak up

Umberto Eco, above, appears twice at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York.

The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is on in right now in New York City, with appearances by Salman Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy, Jeffrey Eugenides, Francine Prose, Peter Carey, Dinaw Mengestu (who just won the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction), and many more.

I know we just had our book festival, but this makes me want to be in New York.

But I am not in New York, so I get the next best thing: a blogorama about the event at MetaxuCafe. The site is gathering posts from smart bloggers who are in attendance, offering everything from a description of Rushdie's opening night remarks ("jolly") to a series of terrific photos. It's a way to catch up with the World Voices festival all in one place, instead of blog by blog.

If you already know enough about the political history of Burma, what's hot in Spanish literature and the real deal with Darfur, eh, there's no use checking it out. But otherwise....

Carolyn Kellogg

2007 Robert Kirsch Award recipient

Acceptance speech by Maxine Hong Kingston, 2007 Robert Kirsch Award recipient.

And the L.A. Times Book Prize winners are...

The ceremony has just ended at UCLA's Royce Hall, and the winners of the 2007 L.A. Times Book Prizes are:

Novelist Maxine Hong Kingston won this year's Robert Kirsch Award, which honors a living author with a connection to the American West whose works have made a substantial contribution to American letters.

Biography: Simon Sebag Montefiore, "Young Stalin"

Current Interest: Elizabeth D. Samet, "Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point"

Fiction: Andrew O’Hagan, "Be Near Me" 

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Dinaw Mengestu, "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears"

History: Tim Weiner, "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA"

Mystery/Thriller: Karin Fossum (translated by Charlotte Barslund), "The Indian Bride"

Poetry: Stanley Plumly, "Old Heart: Poems"

Science & Technology: Douglas Hofstadter, "I Am a Strange Loop"

Young Adult Fiction: Philip Reeve, "A Darkling Plain (The Hungry City Chronicles)"

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Young poets and book prizes -- tonight!

This evening, we'll be toasting the winners of the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes at UCLA (yes, you can still get tickets to attend).

But across town at USC, elementary school students at the 32nd Street/USC Performing Arts Magnet school (perhaps winners in waiting?) will gather to read some of their original poetry.

OK, so they had some help from writers Cecilia Woloch and Aimee Bender; it's still a great opportunity to hear what's on the minds of L.A.'s fourth-graders.

Mary Forgione

Book Prize preview: Junot Díaz

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," up for the L.A. Times Book Prize for fiction (it just won the Pulitzer), took author Junot Díaz 10 years to complete. In October, La Bloga asked Díaz how it felt to have completed the novel about a "ghetto nerd" who loves sci-fi and fantasy. "That S.O.B. almost broke me," he said of "Wao." Still, he added, "books are not people. They are never late to the party. It doesn't make any difference, early or late, as long as you get it done."

LAist has just posted a new interview with Díaz, in which the Dominican-born, New Jersey-raised author speaks passionately (and profanely) about culture, opportunity, language and writing. Here's a sample:

LAist: You speak very highly of your experiences in college, at Rutgers University.

Díaz: You're a poor f***** kid from Dominican New Jersey, from a neighborhood you never left, I mean I certainly never met a girl who liked to read. Never met an activist, you know? Going to college was like immigrating again except it wasn't as f***** up, it was actually kind of fun. I mean, it wasn't f***** paradise, I mean, I worked my way through college, delivering f***** pool tables. I mean, I know kids who say they worked their way through college and they had a f***** work study job at the library, you know? I was f***** working my ass off, so it wasn't a fun ass joke, but compared to what immigration was like when I was a kid? I was like, shit yeah, this is great! You get ass, people invite you to smoke weed, you meet people from all over the world, you read books you can't believe ever could have been written. You get with activists, you get to travel, you know.

Nothing startles me on a daily basis more than what we’re all capable of, and how things can work out if we’re just given a little bit of support – all these institutions that are supposed to be nurturing young people, and this country that’s supposed to be all youth-positive, there is just no support for young people. It takes so little to catapult someone into another universe, but they don’t even want to give you that.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of Mona Simpson and Díaz in conversation at the Hammer Museum/Osmany Rodriguez for LAist

Book prize preview: Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O'Nan's "Last Night at the Lobster" is among the nominees for the L.A. Times Book Prize for fiction.

Recently, O'Nan, a Pittsburgh native, spoke to Hot Metal Bridge, the literary magazine at the University of Pittsburgh.*

Hot Metal Bridge: Some have called you “the bard of the working class.” Is this a title you embrace, or are these readers off the mark?

Stewart O’Nan: I think the only person who’s ever called me that is my editor, trying to put together some sort of fetching jacket copy. I write about average people, but I hope they’re from all classes and all walks. Certainly I’ve paid a lot of attention to people with low-paying jobs in books like "The Lobster" or "The Good Wife" or "Everyday People," but the other two books around those are "Wish You Were Here," about an upper-middle-class family, and "The Night Country," which takes place in the high-end suburbs of Connecticut.

HMB: Most of your books are grounded by a very tangible sense of place. What is it about setting that is so important to you as a writer?

SO'N: People are where they come from and where they live. They’re defined by the culture around them, down to the weather and the land. Even a manufactured culture like the culture of the workplace—the Lobster, for instance. Setting determines what’s possible, what’s probable and what’s inevitable for a character.

There's more here. Or if you want to give O'Nan a listen, he appeared on the marvelous literary podcast The Bat Segundo Show, discussing "Last Night at the Lobster," in December -- play online or download.

Carolyn Kellogg

* Full disclosure: I attend the University of Pittsburgh and was the founding editor of Hot Metal Bridge, from which I have now retired.

'The Shock Doctrine' as video

Naomi Klein's newest book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," has received lots of attention, including a nomination for this year's L.A. Times Book Prize for current interest. Check out this video made (by Alfonso Cuarón) for "The Shock Doctrine."

In the six months that it has been on the Internet, Cuarón's video has made the rounds, garnering nearly 1,200 comments on YouTube.

Klein explains that she sent her finished manuscript to Cuarón "because I adore his films" and that the future world he created in his film "Children of Men" captured the present-day she was seeing in disaster zones in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists -- including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited -- to make 'The Shock Doctrine' short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated."

Carolyn Kellogg

Book prize preview: young adult fiction nominees

The LA Times Book Prizes are coming; April 25 will be here sooner than you think. The nominated authors are busy people: in addition to writing books, many have been doing book tours and readings of their work. Take, for example, the nominees in Young Adult Fiction:

Philip Reeve talks to BBC4 about "A Darkling Plain" (audio)

Walter Dean Myers is the author of the nominated "What They Found: Love on 145th Street"

Geraldine McCaughrean is author of the nominated "The White Darkness"

Sherman Alexie reads from "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (audio).

Kenneth Oppel talks about bats and reads from "Darkwing" (video) at Canada's Indigo Books.

Carolyn Kellogg