Nonfiction Awards by Last Name
Paula Gunn Allen
2007 Lannan Literary Fellowship
Paula Gunn Allen, of Laguna, Sioux and Lebanese descent, is a literary critic, poet, and novelist, and a noted scholar of Native American literature. During a long and distinguished academic career, she edited numerous seminal texts including The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in Native American Traditions (1986) and Spider Woman’s Granddaughters (1990) as well as works on poetry and critical essays on Native American literature. She retired from her position as Professor of English/Creative Writing/American Indian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1999.
Paula Gunn Allen Bio and Cross Links
...HideWendell Berry
1989 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Wendell Berry is a poet, essayist, and novelist, who has been called the “prophet of rural America.” Mr. Berry, who pursues what he calls “an ethic and way of life based upon devotion to a place and devotion to a land,” lives and works on his farm in Port Royal, Kentucky.
He has published more than 30 books, including The Wheel, Sabbaths, and Openings (poetry); The Wild Birds, Watch with Me, and Remembering (fiction); and Another Turn of the Crank, What Are People For?, and The Unsettling of America (nonfiction).
He received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction in 1989.
Wendell Berry Bio and Cross Links
...HideCharles Bowden
1996 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Charles Bowden is the author of eleven books including A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Dog; Down By the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; Juárez: The Laboratory of our Future; Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America; Desierto: Memories of the Future; Red Line; Blue Desert; and (with Michael Binstein) Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions.
He is a contributing editor of Esquire, and also writes for other magazines such as Harper’s and The New York Times Book Review, as well as for newspapers. Winner of the 1996 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Charles Bowden Bio and Cross Links
...HideDavid G. Campbell
2005 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
David G. Campbell, scientist, educator and author, joined the scientific staff of the New York Botanical Garden after earning a PhD at Johns Hopkins. He spent eight years in the field in the Brazilian Amazon conducting research on the biogeography of trees. In 1987 he joined the sixth Brazilian expedition to Antarctica, studying the life cycles and pathologies of the invertebrate parasites of crustaceans, fish and seals.
He is the author of The Ephemeral Islands: A Natural History of the Bahamas; The Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica; Islands in Space and Time, and most recently, A Land of Ghosts: The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia. He is currently Professor of Biology at Grinnell College in Iowa.
David G. Campbell Bio and Cross Links
...HideNoam Chomsky
1992 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Noam Chomsky, who has said, “If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all,” was born in 1928 in Philadelphia. After receiving his doctorate in linguistics, Chomsky began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It was during this time that he became more publicly engaged in politics arguing against American involvement in the Vietnam War. Since then, he has been well known for his progressive political views, and has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and U.S. foreign policy.
Noam Chomsky Bio and Cross Links
...HideMike Davis
2007 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Mike Davis was born in Fontana, California, 60 miles east of Los Angeles in 1946, and is a veteran of 1960’s civil rights and anti-war movements. From his first book, Prisoners of the American Dream (1986), about unionism in the United States, to his most recent, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (2007), Davis’ fearless writing in 18 books shines a fresh light on economic, social, environmental, and political injustice. Some of his other books include City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Magical Urbanism, Planet of Slums, Dead Cities, In Praise of Barbarians, and No One is Illegal. He is currently working on a book about climate change, water, and power in the U.S. West and northern Mexico. A former meat cutter and long-distance truck driver, Davis has been a fellow at the Getty Institute and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998. He teaches at the University of California, Irvine.
Mike Davis Bio and Cross Links
...HideTim Flannery
2006 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Tim Flannery is on a mission. He believes human activity is drastically altering the earth’s climate, and in time these changes will have a devastating effect. In The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth, he traces the story of climate change over millions of years and exposes the substantial, human-induced impact and likely effects if this process continues. He then proposes a plan to halt, and ultimately reverse, this trend. The book has been published in 32 countries and has played a key role in international discussion of the issue. A regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement, Flannery also contributes to NPR and the BBC.
Tim Flannery Bio and Cross Links
...HideThomas Frank
2004 Lannan Literary Fellowship
Thomas Frank, writer and social critic, founded The Baffler in 1988 in Chicago, a magazine devoted to cultural criticism. He has authored three nonfiction books: The Conquest of Cool in 1997 about the advertising industry of the 1960’s and its discovery of the counterculture; One Market Under God in 2000, a study of the mythology of the “New Economy” and the corporate populism of the 1990’s; and in 2004, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, an examination of pop conservatism in his home state and by extension, across the country.
Frank’s writing “is so dazzlingly witty and scornful it can stand comparison with the works of Twain or Mencken.” The Observer (London)
Thomas Frank Bio and Cross Links
...HideChris Hedges
2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship
Chris Hedges, currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. He is the author of the best-selling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Public Affairs, 2002), which was a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. Hedges was part of The New York Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. His most recent book is Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (Free Press, 2005). Hedges is also the author of What Every Person Should Know About War (Free Press, 2003) and will publish American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (Free Press) in January 2007.
Chris Hedges Bio and Cross Links
...HideChristopher Hitchens
1991 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Christopher Hitchens’ books include The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice; For the Sake of Argument; and Blood, Class, and Nostalgia. With Edward Said, he has edited Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and The Question of Palestine. Mr. Hitchens received a Lannan Literary Award in 1991.
Christopher Hitchens Bio and Cross Links
...HideAdam Hochschild
2005 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Adam Hochschild is a writer and a founding editor of Mother Jones. His books include Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son; The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey; The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin; Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels; the acclaimed King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa; and, most recently, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves.
Hochschild is a former commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” He teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and lives in San Francisco.
Adam Hochschild Bio and Cross Links
...HideFreeman House
2005 Lannan Literary Fellowship
Freeman House is a former commercial salmon fisher who has been involved with a community-based watershed restoration effort in northern California for more than twenty-five years. He is a co-founder of the Mattole Salmon Group and the Mattole Restoration Council.
His book, Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species received the best nonfiction award from the San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award for quality of prose.
Freeman House Bio and Cross Links
...HideLewis Hyde
2002 Lannan Literary Fellowship
Lewis Hyde, Luce Professor of Art and Politics at Kenyon College, is the author of Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art, an exploration of the “trickster” character who appears in the myths and traditional stories of many cultures.
He also has written, edited, and translated several books, including This Error is the Sign of Love; Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking; On the Work of Allen Ginsberg; and The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property.
Lewis Hyde Bio and Cross Links
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