L.A. Times Honors Juan Felipe Herrera for Lifetime Achievement
Poet laureate of the U.S., Juan Felipe Herrera, will be given the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement by the Los Angeles Times, as reported today at Jacket Copy. Carolyn Kellogg reports:
Leading the L.A. Times Book Prizes announced Tuesday are U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, who will be presented with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, and bestselling author James Patterson, recipient of the Innovator’s Award for his work to inspire a lifelong love of reading in children and his support of independent bookstores nationwide.
Additionally, five finalists were named in 10 categories. Notable among the 50 finalists are Valeria Luiselli, who won the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction in 2015, whose novel "The Story of My Teeth" is a finalist for this year's fiction award. The mystery/thriller category includes both veterans, such as prior finalist Don Winslow with "The Cartel," and newcomer Viet Thanh Nguyen with "The Sympathizer."
Other notable finalists include poet Jorie Graham; Hayden Herrera for her biography of artist and designer Isamu Noguchi; Jason Reynolds in YA as a finalist for his novel “The Boy in the Black Suit”; Science and Technology finalists include John Markoff’s “Loving Grace,” about humans and robots; Chigozie Obioma is a First Fiction finalist with “The Fishermen,” artist Carol Tyler a finalist in Graphic Novel for "Soldier's Heart," historian Mary Beard in that category for her history of Rome, "SPQR"; and Joe Domanick is a Current Interest contender with “Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing.” The complete list of finalists is below.
Head to Jacket Copy to read up on all the finalists. But before making the jump, the finalist in poetry are...
Rick Barot, "Chord" (Sarabande Books)
Jorie Graham, "From the World: Poems 1976-2014" (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Robin Coste Lewis, "Voyage of the Sable Venus" (Alfred A. Knopf)
Fiona Sze-Lorrain, "The Ruined Elegance" (Princeton University Press)
Jean Valentine, "Shirt in Heaven" (Copper Canyon Press)