PEN America honors activists, artists and dissidents
From an imprisoned Ukranian journalist to a high school activist in Florida, PEN America paid tribute Monday night to democracy and free expression and warned about the dangers faced in the U.S. and abroad.
Zadie Smith to receive PEN America literary service award
Author Zadie Smith is this yearโs winner of the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, an honor previously given to Toni Morrison, Stephen Sondheim and Margaret Atwood among others.
![Hundreds gather for PEN America gala, hosted by Awkwafina](https://www.wsls.com/resizer/ljZMBtlxhKfuByBKVjYwh7uNUdA=/800x546/smart/filters:format(jpeg):strip_exif(true):strip_icc(true):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gmg/UKEPBXYLPBBGNIYH77UJO273EM.jpg)
Hundreds gather for PEN America gala, hosted by Awkwafina
PEN America held one of New Yorkโs first major indoor literary gatherings since the pandemic began last year, as hundreds met Tuesday night for the organizationโs annual gala to honor writers, community servants, political dissidents and such prominent public figures as Walt Disney executive chair Robert A.
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Akhtar, Ehrenreich among winners of American Book Awards
Ayad Akhtar's acclaimed novel โHomeland Elegies,โ Ben Ehrenreichโs environmental warning โDesert Notebooksโ and an illustrated edition of the late William Melvin Kelleyโs postmodern narrative โDunfords Travels Everywheresโ are among this yearโs winners of American Book Awards for works that highlight the countryโs diversity.
![McBride, Rankine among nominees for Carnegie literary medals](https://www.wsls.com/resizer/J3RnRA-RcLYdhd37N8AlN1r55Ac=/1600x408/smart/filters:format(jpeg):strip_exif(true):strip_icc(true):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gmg/T44JENCMFZGGPDHIGKZ7XE27RI.jpg)
McBride, Rankine among nominees for Carnegie literary medals
NEW YORK โ James McBride's latest novel and nonfiction by poets Claudia Rankine and Natasha Trethewey are among the finalists for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for fiction and nonfiction. The American Library Association announced Tuesday that McBride's โDeacon King Kong" was a fiction nominee, along with Ayad Akhtar's novel โHomeland Elegiesโ and an acclaimed debut novel, Megha Majumdar's โA Burning.โ The nonfiction finalists are Trethewey's โMemorial Drive: A Daughterโs Memoir," Rankine's โJust Us,โ which combines poetry, prose and photography, and Rebecca Giggs' โFathoms: The World in the Whale." Winners in each category will be receive $5,000, and will be announced Feb. 4, 2021. The awards are supported, in part, by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.