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Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category

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Posthumous Pulitzer for Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Monday, June 29th, 2020
American journalist and reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

American journalist and reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

On May 4, 2020, the American journalist and reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett was awarded a special citation by the board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes. Pulitzer Prizes are given in the United States each year for distinguished achievement in journalism, literature, drama, and music. Wells-Barnett was known chiefly for her campaign against the lynching (lawless killing) of African Americans during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Pulitzer citation honored her “outstanding and courageous” reporting during the era of lynching.

Ida B. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. She moved to Memphis in 1884. In 1889, she became part-owner and a reporter for Free Speech, a Memphis newspaper. In 1892, after three of her friends were hanged in Memphis, she began to investigate lynchings and other violence against African Americans. Her work led to the founding of many antilynching organizations.

In 1894, Wells moved to Chicago to continue her efforts. She married in 1895, becoming Ida B. Wells-Barnett. In 1909, Wells-Barnett helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She also took part in the campaign to give women the right to vote. Until her death in 1931, Wells-Barnett continued to fight for the rights of African Americans.

The Pulitzer Prize medal Credit: © 2020 The Pulitzer Prizes

The Pulitzer Prize medal
Credit: © 2020 The Pulitzer Prizes

Wells-Barnett was far from the first African American to be recognized by the Pulitzer Prize board. In 1950, the American poet Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. Also in 2020, the American author Colson Whitehead became one of a very few authors to have received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice.

Tags: ida wells-barnett, literature, pulitzer
Posted in Current Events, Literature, Women | Comments Off

Anne Brontë 200

Friday, January 17th, 2020

January 17, 2020

Today, January 17, marks 200 years since the birth of the English writer Anne Brontë in 1820. Anne was the youngest and least-known of the literary Brontë sisters. She may have been overshadowed by her older sisters, but both Anne’s novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), are considered classic of English literature.

The Brontë sisters were painted by their brother Branwell. The picture shows Anne, left, Emily, center, and Charlotte, right. Credit: The Granger Collection

This painting of the Brontë sisters shows Anne, left, Emily, center, and Charlotte, right. Credit: The Granger Collection

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Anne’s 200th birthday is being celebrated by Brontë200, a program run by the the Brontë Society and the Brontë Parsonage Museum (at the Brontë family home in Haworth, a village in West Yorkshire). A special exhibit, “Anne Brontë: Amid the brave and strong,” is currently at the museum, and a number of Anne Brontë-themed literary lectures and art exhibits are also taking place. Anne’s bicentennial is the final leg of Brontë200, which also marked the 200th birthdays of her sisters Charlotte (in 2016) and Emily (in 2018).

Anne, Charlotte, and Emily (and three other siblings) were brought up by their father, Patrick, and their Aunt Elizabeth, who moved in after the children’s mother died in 1821. The sisters went to several boarding schools, where they received a better education than was usual for girls at that time. But the school atmosphere was harsh.

Few jobs were available for women at that time. The Brontë sisters, except for occasional jobs as governesses or schoolteachers, lived their entire lives at home. They were shy, poor, and lonely. They occupied themselves with music, drawing, reading, and—above all—writing. Their isolation led to the early development of their imaginations. In 1846, under the masculine pen names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the sisters published a joint volume of poems. Although only two copies were sold, all three sisters soon had their first novels published.

Charlotte Brontë wrote four novels, the most famous of which is Jane Eyre (1847), before dying at age 38 in 1855. Emily Brontë wrote the famous novel Wuthering Heights (1847) before she died at age 30 in 1848. Anne also died young, probably of tuberculosis, at age 29 in 1849.

Tags: Anne Brontë, bicentennial, Brontë sisters, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, england, jane eyre, literature, wuthering heights
Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Current Events, History, Literature, People | Comments Off

Nobel Prizes: Literature, Peace, and Economics

Wednesday, October 16th, 2019

October 16, 2019

Last week, World Book looked at the Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry. Today, we present the Nobel Prize winners in literature, peace, and economics. Every year in the first week of October, the Nobel Foundation in Sweden awards Nobel Prizes to artists, economists, scientists, and peace workers who—in keeping with the vision of the Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel—have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.

Nobel Prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

Nobel Prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

On October 10, the 2019 Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to the Austrian writer Peter Handke. Handke, an accomplished playwright, novelist, and screenwriter, was rewarded for his “influential work” and “linguistic ingenuity” in exploring human experience. On the same day, the 2018 literature prize (which was delayed over a scandal involving a foundation member) was given to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk for her “narrative imagination” and “encyclopedic passion” representing all walks of life.

On Oct. 11, 2019, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his successful efforts to create peace between his nation and neighboring Eritrea. In July 2018, Ahmed negotiated “a joint declaration of peace and friendship” with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, resolving a dispute that had festered since Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia and became an independent nation in 1993. Since coming to office in April 2018, Ahmed has also restored democratic freedoms within Ethiopia.

On Oct. 14, 2019, the Nobel Prize for economics was given to the United States-based economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer for creating an “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” Banerjee and Duflo (who are married and serve as professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) worked with the Harvard University academic Kremer to find scientific solutions to improve education and children’s health around the world. They broke large issues into simple questions and then searched for practical answers to those questions that could be instituted on a grand scale.

Tags: Abiy Ahmed, economics, literature, nobel prize, Olga Tokarczuk, peace, Peter Handke
Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Current Events, Economics, Education, Government & Politics, Literature, People | Comments Off

Herman Melville 200

Friday, August 2nd, 2019

August 2, 2019

Yesterday, August 1, was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated United States author Herman Melville, in 1819. Melville ranks among the major authors of American literature. He wrote Moby-Dick, one of the world’s great novels, and his reputation rests largely on this book. But many of his other works are literary creations of a high order—blending fact, fiction, adventure, and symbolism. Melville’s vast personal experience in faraway places was remarkable even in the footloose and exploratory world of the 1800′s. Melville brought to his extraordinary adventures a vivid imagination and a philosophical skepticism, as well as a remarkable skill in handling the evolving American language. Melville was born in New York City. He died there, too, on Sept. 28, 1891.

Herman Melville.  Credit: Library of Congress

Herman Melville was born 200 years ago on Aug. 1, 1819. Credit: Library of Congress

A number of events are marking Melville’s 200th birthday anniversary in 2019. In June, the Melville Society hosted a commemorative conference called “Melville’s Origins” at New York University. In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Berkshire Historical Society is celebrating “Melville at 200” August 1 to 4 with the unveiling of a memorial plaque, a marathon reading of Moby-Dick, and events at Melville’s farm, Arrowhead (where Melville wrote Moby-Dick and other works). In Philadelphia, The Rosenbach museum’s exhibition “American Voyager: Herman Melville at 200” will display the author’s manuscripts, first editions, and whaling artifacts from October 2 through April 5, 2020.

Illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dick.  Credit: Public Domain

This illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dick depicts the fearsome white whale. Credit: Public Domain

Melville lived his first 11 years in New York City. In 1831, his family moved to Albany, New York. Melville worked a variety of jobs before sailing to Liverpool, England, in 1837 as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. He described this trip in his novel Redburn. Melville returned to America and signed on as a seaman on the newly built whaling ship Acushnet for a trip in the Pacific Ocean. From this trip came the basic experiences recorded in several of his books, and above all, the whaling knowledge he put into Moby-Dick.

Melville sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Jan. 3, 1841. He stayed on the Acushnet for 18 months. After the ship put in at Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, he and a shipmate deserted. The two men headed inland until they came to the lovely valley of the Typees, a Polynesian tribe with a reputation as fierce cannibals. But the natives turned out to be gentle, charming hosts. Melville described his experiences with them in Typee.

Melville lived in the valley for about a month. He then joined another whaling ship, but he soon deserted it with other sailors in a semimutiny at Tahiti. After a few days in a local jail, Melville and a new friend began roaming the beautiful and unspoiled islands of Tahiti and Moorea. Melville described his life during these wanderings in the novel Omoo.

After short service on a third whaling ship, Melville landed at Hawaii, where he lived doing odd jobs. On Aug. 17, 1843, he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. He recounted his long voyage around Cape Horn in the novel White-Jacket. Melville arrived in Boston in October 1844. He was released from the Navy and headed home to Albany, his imagination overflowing with his adventures.

Melville wrote about his experiences so attractively that he soon became one of the most popular writers of his time. The books that made his reputation were Typee (1846); Omoo (1847); Mardi (1849), a complex allegorical romance set in the South Seas; Redburn (1849); and White-Jacket (1850).

Melville then began Moby-Dick, another “whaling voyage,” as he called it, similar to his successful travel books. He had almost completed the book when he met fellow author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne inspired him to radically revise the whaling documentary into a novel of both universal significance and literary complexity.

Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851), on one level, is the story of the hunt for Moby Dick, a fierce white whale supposedly known to sailors of Melville’s time. Captain Ahab is the captain of the whaling ship Pequod. He has lost a leg in an earlier battle with Moby Dick, and he is determined to catch the whale. The novel brilliantly describes the dangerous and often violent life on a whaling ship, and it includes information on the whaling industry and a discussion of the nature of whales. On another level, Moby-Dick is a deeply symbolic story. The whale symbolizes the mysterious and complex force of the universe, and Captain Ahab represents the heroic struggle against the limiting and crippling constrictions that confront an intelligent person.

Melville’s popularity began to decline with the publication of his masterpiece. The novel, either ignored or misunderstood by critics and readers, damaged Melville’s reputation as a writer. When Melville followed Moby-Dick with the pessimistic and tragic novel Pierre (1853), his readers began to desert him, calling him either eccentric or mad. The public was ready to accept unusual and exciting adventures, but they did not want ironic, frightening exposures of the terrible double meanings in life.

Melville turned to writing short stories. Two of them, “Benito Cereno” and “Bartleby the Scrivener,” rank as classics. But the haunting and disturbing question of the meaning of life that hovered over the stories also displeased the public. In 1855, Melville published Israel Potter, a novel set during the American Revolution (1775-1783). After The Confidence-Man (1856), a bitter satire on humanity, Melville gave up writing.

Melville worked as deputy inspector of customs in the Port of New York from 1866 until his retirement in 1885. He then began writing again. He died in 1891, leaving behind the manuscript of Billy Budd, Sailor. This short novel, first published in 1924 and considered Melville’s finest book after Moby-Dick, is a symbolic story about the clash between innocence and evil and between social forms and individual liberty.

The 1920′s marked the start of a Melville revival among critics and readers. By the 1940′s, Americans at last recognized his literary genius. His reputation has since spread throughout the world and continued to grow.

Tags: american literature, art, herman melville, massachusetts, moby-dick, new bedford, new york city, novels, whaling, writers
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2019 Pulitzer Prizes

Wednesday, April 17th, 2019

April 17, 2019

The winners of the 103rd Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday, April 15, by Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The awards are given in the United States each year for distinguished achievement in journalism, literature, drama, and music.

Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, became one of the greatest American newspaper publishers in history. He established the Pulitzer Prizes for achievements in journalism, literature, music, and art. Credit: © Hulton Archives/Getty Images

Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, established the Pulitzer Prizes in 1917. Credit: © Hulton Archives/Getty Images

The public service prize in 2019 went to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Miami in 2018. The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won the breaking-news reporting prize for its coverage of another mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. The prize for investigative reporting went to writers of the Los Angeles Times for their report on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of sexually abusing hundreds of patients. Writers for The New York Times won the explanatory-reporting prize for their investigation revealing false financial claims made by United States President Donald Trump. The staff of The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) won the local-reporting prize for documenting Louisiana’s discriminatory criminal conviction system. The staff of The Wall Street Journal earned the national-reporting prize for coverage of President Trump’s secret payoffs to women who claimed to have had affairs with him.

Reporters from the Associated Press and from Reuters shared the international-reporting prize for coverage of war atrocities in Yemen and violence against Rohingya people in Myanmar, respectively. Hannah Dreier of ProPublica won the feature-writing prize for her series documenting problems faced by Salvadoran immigrants in New York. Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch won the commentary award for revealing Missouri’s corrupt system of fines versus jail time for poor people charged with misdemeanor crimes. Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post won for literary criticism. Brent Staples of The New York Times won for editorial writing. Freelancer Darrin Bell won the editorial cartooning prize. Reuters staff photographers won the breaking-news photography award for detailing the ordeal of Central American migrants journeying to the United States border. Lorenzo Tugnoli of The Washington Post won the award for feature photography for his portraits of people affected by the war in Yemen.

Richard Powers won the fiction-writing award for The Overstory, a novel connecting nature with the human experience. Jackie Sibblies won the drama prize for examining racial prejudice in Fairview. David W. Blight won the history award for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Jeffrey C. Stewart won the biography or autobiography award for The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. Forrest Gander won the poetry prize for his collection Be With. Eliza Griswold won the nonfiction prize for Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Composer Ellen Reid won the Pulitzer Prize in music for her operatic work, p r i s m. Special Pulitzer citations were given to the late Aretha Franklin, for her contribution to American music and culture, and to the staff of the Capital Gazette (Annapolis, Maryland), for covering the murder of five of their own employees in the newspaper’s offices.

The Columbia University School of Journalism was founded in 1912, and the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917. Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper publisher who founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, established the prizes. Nearly all of the Pulitzer Prizes have a value of $10,000. The only exception is the prize for public service in journalism. The winner of that award receives a gold medal.

Tags: journalism, literature, music, pulitzer prizes
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Lawrence Ferlinghetti 100

Monday, March 25th, 2019

March 25, 2019

Yesterday, March 24, the American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti celebrated his 100th birthday. Ferlinghetti is best known as a leader of the Beat movement of the 1950′s. The Beats were writers who rejected commercialism and middle-class American values. A birthday party for the centenarian (100-year-old) poet was held yesterday at City Lights, the famous San Francisco bookstore that Ferlinghetti co-founded in 1953. The city of San Francisco marked his birthday by declaring March 24 “Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day.”

American poet, painter and liberal activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti poses for a portrait while playing an autoharp circa 1971 in San Francisco, California.  Credit: © Robert Altman, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The famed American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti turned 100 years old on March 24, 2019. Credit: © Robert Altman, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1941 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II (1939-1945), he earned a master’s degree in literature from Columbia University in 1947 and a doctorate in literature from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1950.

When he returned to the United States, Ferlinghetti settled in San Francisco. There, in 1953, he and a friend, Peter Martin, established the City Lights bookstore. The store became a gathering place for Beat and avant-garde (experimental) writers and artists. In 1955, Ferlinghetti started a publishing company, also called City Lights. He published his own first volume of poetry, Pictures of the Gone World (1955), as well as works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth, and other writers. Ferlinghetti’s most famous poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), is a satiric criticism of American culture.

Ferlinghetti writes in colloquial free verse. His poetry describes the need to release literature and life from conformity and timidity. He believes Zen Buddhism and love can open the soul to truth and beauty. Aside from numerous volumes of poetry, Ferlinghetti has also written literary criticism, novels, plays, travelogues, and the 2019 autobiographical prose poem Little Boy. He is also known for his paintings and his support for liberal political and social causes.

Tags: art, beat movement, city lights, howl, lawrence ferlinghetti, poetry, san francisco
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Edgar Allan Poe

Friday, January 18th, 2019

January 18, 2019

Tomorrow, January 19, marks 210 years since the birth of American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe in 1809. Poe’s stormy personal life and his haunting poems and stories combined to make him one of the most famous figures in American literary history.

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic. Poe's stormy personal life and his haunting poems and stories combined to make him one of the most famous figures in American literature. Credit: © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Edgar Allan Poe was born 210 years ago on Jan. 19, 1809. Credit: © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Poe’s influence on literature was immense. His short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) is considered the first modern detective story. His reviews of American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne mark him as the first significant theorist of the modern short story. His poetry and his stories of terror are among the most influential in modern literature. Writers as diverse as the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky have used Poe’s stories to launch their own fictional experiments.

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, in Philadelphia, includes the house where the American author lived in 1843 and 1844, shown here. Two other buildings on the site have displays about Poe's life. Credit: National Park Service

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia includes the house where the American author lived in 1843 and 1844. Credit: National Park Service

Poe worked as an editor and contributor to several magazines. He unsuccessfully tried to found and edit his own magazine, which would have granted him financial security and artistic control in what he considered a hostile literary marketplace. His famous works include the short stories “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Gold Bug,” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” His poem “The Raven” is one of the most famous works in American literature.

Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He lived parts of his life there and in Richmond, Virginia; the United Kingdom; New York City; Philadelphia; and in Baltimore, Maryland, where he died on Oct. 3, 1849. The cause of his death was listed as “congestion of the brain,” though the precise circumstances of his death have never been fully explained.

Tags: american literature, baltimore, edgar allan poe, literature, poetry, the raven
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J. D. Salinger 100

Monday, December 31st, 2018

December 31, 2018

On Jan. 1, 1919, 100 years ago tomorrow, American author J. D. Salinger was born in New York City. Salinger gained fame for writing The Catcher in the Rye (1951), one of the greatest novels in American literature. Salinger shied from his fame, however, and isolated himself in rural New Hampshire from the 1950′s until his death on Jan. 27, 2010.

J.D. Salinger, an American author, became famous for his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). From the 1950's until his death in 2010, he isolated himself in rural New Hampshire. Credit: © University of New Hampshire/Gado/Getty Images

American author J.D. Salinger was born 100 years ago on Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City. Credit: © University of New Hampshire/Gado/Getty Images

The hero and narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is a prep school student named Holden Caulfield, who is expelled for failing grades. Adrift in New York City, Holden learns to face both the phoniness he finds in the adult world and his own weaknesses. In Catcher, and in much of the fiction that followed, Salinger humorously and convincingly captured the speech, gestures, and feelings of the young. A staple in schools throughout the United States, The Catcher in the Rye came to symbolize restless youth everywhere.

Salinger’s Nine Stories (1953) introduces the Glass family, central figures of the author’s later works. One story in this book focuses on Seymour Glass, an eccentric genius whose suicide haunts the family in other fiction. In Franny and Zooey (1961), Franny Glass suffers a spiritual breakdown. Her brother Zooey blames his older brothers for Franny’s condition, but he draws on their wisdom to help her. Salinger also focused on Seymour in three stories first published in The New Yorker magazine. These stories are “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters” (1955), “Seymour: An Introduction” (1959), and “Hapworth 16, 1924″ (1965).

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Salinger’s birth, the author’s works are being reissued and a series of Salinger-themed events in bookstores and libraries will take place across the country in 2019, including an exhibition from Salinger’s archive at the New York Public Library.

Tags: american literature, j. d. salinger, the catcher in the rye
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2018 Pulitzer Prizes

Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

April 18, 2018

The winners of the 102nd Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday, April 16, by Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The awards are given in the United States each year for distinguished achievement in journalism, literature, drama, and music.

Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, became one of the greatest American newspaper publishers in history. He established the Pulitzer Prizes for achievements in journalism, literature, music, and art. Credit: © Hulton Archives/Getty Images

Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, became one of the greatest American newspaper publishers in history. He established the Pulitzer Prizes for achievements in journalism, literature, music, and art. Credit: © Hulton Archives/Getty Images

The public service prize in 2018 went jointly to the The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine for exposing sexual harassment in Hollywood and spurring global debate on the sexual abuse of women. The staff of the The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California) won the breaking-news reporting prize for its coverage of wildfires that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. The prize for investigative reporting went to the staff of The Washington Post for revealing alleged past sexual harassment of teenage girls that changed the course of a U.S. Senate race in Alabama.

The staffs of The Arizona Republic and USA Today Network won the explanatory-reporting prize for detailing the difficulties and consequences of constructing a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The staff of The Cincinnati Enquirer won the local-reporting prize for documenting greater Cincinnati’s deadly heroin epidemic. The staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post shared the national-reporting prize for coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the U.S. presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Reuters reporters Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall, and Manuel Mogato won the international-reporting prize for exposing the killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Freelance reporter Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won the feature-writing prize for her GQ magazine portrait of Charleston, South Carolina, church killer Dylann Roof.

John Archibald of the Alabama Media Group won the commentary award for scrutinizing corrupt local politicians, championing the rights of women, and calling out hypocrisy. Jerry Saltz of New York magazine won for visual arts criticism. Andie Dominick of The Des Moines Register (Iowa) won for editorial writing. Freelancers Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan won for their editorial cartoons in The New York Times. Ryan Kelly of The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia) won the breaking-news photography award for capturing on film a car attack during a racially-charged protest in Charlottesville. The Reuters photography staff’s documentation of violence against Rohingya people in Myanmar won the award for feature photography.

Andrew Sean Greer won the fiction-writing award for Less, a story about growing older and the essential nature of love. Martyna Majok won the drama prize for examining diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection in Cost of Living. Jack E. Davis won the history award for The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. Hisham Matar won the biography or autobiography award for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Frank Bidart won the poetry prize for Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016. James Forman, Jr., won the nonfiction prize for Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Rapper Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. became the first nonclassical or jazz work to win the Pulitzer Prize in music.

The Columbia University School of Journalism was founded in 1912, and the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917. Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper publisher who founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, established the prizes. Nearly all of the Pulitzer Prizes have a value of $10,000. The only exception is the prize for public service in journalism. The winner of that award receives a gold medal.

Tags: journalism, literature, music, pulitzer prizes
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Nobel Prize in Literature

Friday, October 14th, 2016

October 14, 2016

On October 13, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature to the American composer, singer, and musician Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” He became the first songwriter to win the award.

Nobel Prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

Nobel Prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

Dylan has been one of the most influential songwriters of the past 50 years. He called his early work “finger-pointing songs” aimed at what many people considered the wrongs of society. These early songs, often performed with acoustic guitar and harmonica, included “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War” (both 1963) and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (1964). These songs became anthems that helped galvanize the civil rights movement of the United States and captured the spirit of young American protesters who opposed the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War (1957-1975).

American singer, composer, and musician Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in LIterature. Credit: © Valerie Wilmer, Camera Press/Redux Pictures

American singer, composer, and musician Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Credit: © Valerie Wilmer, Camera Press/Redux Pictures

Dylan turned to electronic instruments in 1965, producing one of the greatest of all rock songs, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Dylan recorded many other popular songs, including “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965), “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (1965), “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35″ (1966), “Just Like a Woman” (1966), “Lay Lady Lay” (1969), “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (from the soundtrack of the 1973 motion picture Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid), and “Tangled Up in Blue” (1975). Many other artists have recorded Dylan’s songs.

Dylan’s switch from acoustic to electronic music in 1965 angered some of his fans but won him many new ones. Dylan has shifted musical directions several times, such as turning to country music in the late 1960′s and Christian music in the early 1980′s. Today, Dylan continues to explore a variety of musical genres, drawing from folk, blues, country music, jazz, and early rock traditions.

Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941. His real name was Robert Allen Zimmerman. After dropping out of the University of Minnesota in 1961, he moved to New York City to meet his idol, folk singer Woody Guthrie.

Dylan has won almost a dozen Grammy Awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. He won an Academy Award for his song “Things Have Changed” from the motion picture Wonder Boys (2000). Dylan received a Pulitzer Prize citation in 2008 for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, in 2012.

Other World Book and Back in Time articles

  • Popular music
  • Back in Time: Popular music (1965)

 

Tags: bob dylan, folk music, literature, nobel prize, popular music, rock music, songwriting
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