Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Encyclopedia
The Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which was first awarded in 2006, "is the only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace." Awards are given for adult fiction and non-fiction books published at some point within the immediate past year that have led readers to a better understanding of other peoples, cultures, religions, and political views, with the winner in each category receiving a cash prize of $10,000. The award is an offshoot of the Dayton Peace Prize, which grew out of the 1995 peace accords
ending the Bosnian War
.
In 2008, Martin Luther King, Jr.
, biographer Taylor Branch
joined Studs Terkel
and Elie Wiesel
as a recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to him by special guest Edwin C. Moses. The 2008 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio
, on September 28, 2008. Nick Clooney
, who hosted the ceremony in 2007, again served as the evening's host in 2008 and 2009.
The 2009 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio, on November 8, 2009, at which married authors and journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award.
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on...
ending the Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
.
In 2008, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
, biographer Taylor Branch
Taylor Branch
Taylor Branch is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement...
joined Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
and Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
as a recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to him by special guest Edwin C. Moses. The 2008 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
, on September 28, 2008. Nick Clooney
Nick Clooney
Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Clooney is an American journalist, anchorman, and television host. He is the brother of the late singer Rosemary Clooney, and father of actor and film director George Clooney.-Early life:...
, who hosted the ceremony in 2007, again served as the evening's host in 2008 and 2009.
The 2009 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio, on November 8, 2009, at which married authors and journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Sheryl WuDunn
Sheryl WuDunn is a Chinese American business executive, author, lecturer, and the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer Prize.A senior banker focusing on growth companies in technology, new media and the emerging markets, WuDunn also works with double bottom line firms, alternative energy issues,...
received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Recipients
2011- Fiction winner: Chang-rae LeeChang-Rae LeeChang-rae Lee is a Korean American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.-Early life:...
, The Surrendered - Fiction runner-up: Maaza MengisteMaaza MengisteMaaza Mengiste is an Ethiopian writer.In 1974, when Mengiste was four years old, Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a military coup. Among the victims of the revolution were three of Mengiste's maternal uncles. Her family was forced to flee the country, and she grew up in Lagos, Nigeria,...
, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze - Non-Fiction winner: Wilbert RideauWilbert RideauWilbert Rideau is a former death row inmate in Louisiana, as well as an author and award-winning prison journalist. Rideau was initially convicted of murder and served time in the Louisiana State Penitentiary...
, In the Place of Justice - Non-Fiction runner-up: Isabel WilkersonIsabel WilkersonIsabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.-Biography:...
, The Warmth of Other SunsThe Warmth of Other SunsThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration is a history book by African-American author Isabel Wilkerson. It is about the The Great Migration and the Second Great Migration, the movement of blacks out of the Southern United States to the Midwest, Northeast and West... - Richard C. Hoolbrooke Award: Barbara KingsolverBarbara KingsolverBarbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...
- Scholarship Award: Nigel Young, Ed. for The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace
2010
- Fiction winner: Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
- Fiction runner-up: Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieChimamanda Ngozi AdichieChimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer.Her family is of Igbo descent. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.-Early life and education:...
, The Thing Around Your Neck - Non-Fiction winner: Dave EggersDave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
, ZeitounZeitoun (book)Zeitoun is a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers and published by McSweeney's in 2009. It tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the Syrian-American owner of a painting and contracting company in New Orleans who chose to ride out Hurricane Katrina in his Uptown home... - Non-Fiction runner-up: Justine Hardy, In the Valley of Mist
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Geraldine BrooksGeraldine BrooksGeraldine Brooks is an Australian journalist and author whose 2005 novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
2009
- Fiction winner: Richard BauschRichard BauschRichard Bausch is an American novelist and short story writer, and Moss Chair of Excellence in English at the University of Memphis. He has written eleven novels, eight short story collections, and one volume of poetry and prose....
, Peace - Fiction runner-up: Uwem AkpanUwem AkpanUwem Akpan, born May 19, 1971, is a Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer. He is the author of Say You’re One of Them , a collection of five stories published by Little, Brown & Company...
, Say You're One of Them - Non-Fiction winner: Benjamin Skinner, A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery
- Non-Fiction runner-up: Thomas FriedmanThomas FriedmanThomas Lauren Friedman is an American journalist, columnist and author. He writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, and environmental issues and has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.-Personal...
, Hot, Flat, and CrowdedHot, Flat, and CrowdedHot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America is a book by New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, proposing that the solutions to global warming and the best method to regain the United States' economic and political stature in the world is... - Lifetime Achievement Award: Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunnSheryl WuDunnSheryl WuDunn is a Chinese American business executive, author, lecturer, and the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer Prize.A senior banker focusing on growth companies in technology, new media and the emerging markets, WuDunn also works with double bottom line firms, alternative energy issues,...
2008
- Fiction winner: Junot DíazJunot DíazJunot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling novel written by Dominican author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo... - Fiction runner-up: Daniel AlarcónDaniel AlarcónDaniel Alarcón is an author who lives in Oakland, California; he has been a the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College and a Visiting Writer at California College of the Arts...
, Lost City RadioLost City Radio-Plot summary:After a ten-year insurrection set in a nameless South American country in which the totalitarian government defeated a rebel group, the government has eliminated all indigenous languages and renamed all places as numbers; radio is the only remaining convenience... - Non-Fiction winner: Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm DyingBrother, I'm DyingBrother I'm Dying, published in 2007, is a family memoir by novelist Edwidge Danticat. In 2007, the title won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was also nominated for the National Book Award.-Book Summary:...
- Non-Fiction runner-up: Cullen MurphyCullen MurphyJohn Cullen Murphy, Jr. is an American writer and editor probably best known for his work at The Atlantic, where he served as managing editor and editor ....
, Are We Rome? - Lifetime Achievement Award: Taylor BranchTaylor BranchTaylor Branch is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement...
2007
- Fiction winner: Brad KesslerBrad KesslerBrad Kessler is an American novelist. His most recent work is 2009's Goat Song.Brad Kessler is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Birds in Fall which won the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Part of Birds in Fall was previously published in the Spring 2006 The Kenyon Review. and was...
, Birds in Fall - Fiction runner-up: Lisa FugardLisa FugardLisa Fugard was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the only child of playwright Athol Fugard and novelist Sheila Meiring Fugard. She moved to New York City in 1980 to pursue an acting career, and has garnered numerous stage and film roles, including Isabel Dyson in the original production of her...
, Skinner's Drift - Non-Fiction winner: Mark KurlanskyMark KurlanskyMark Kurlansky is an American journalist and writer of general interest non-fiction. He is especially known for titles on eclectic topics, such as cod or salt....
, Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea - Non-Fiction runner-up: Greg MortensonGreg MortensonGreg Mortenson, SPk is an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer, and former mountaineer. He is the co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute as well as the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace...
and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of TeaThree Cups of TeaThree Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time is a book by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin published by Penguin in 2006. For four years, the book remained on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller's list...
: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time - Lifetime Achievement Award: Elie WieselElie WieselSir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
2006
- Fiction winner: Francine ProseFrancine ProseFrancine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....
, A Changed Man - Fiction runner-up: Kevin Haworth, The Discontinuity of Small Things
- Non-Fiction winner: Stephen WalkerStephen Walker (filmmaker)Stephen Walker is a British filmmaker and director primarily known in the UK for his TV documentaries. He has directed around 14 films, and was voted in the top 10 directors in the UK in Broadcast Magazine in 2007....
, Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima - Non-Fiction runner-up: Adam HochschildAdam HochschildAdam Hochschild is an American author and journalist.-Biography:Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964...
, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves - Lifetime Achievement Award: Studs TerkelStuds TerkelLouis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...