A Southern California writer who has chronicled the lives of immigrants, and a novelist who has mastered tale of being lonely, were hailed by the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes this weekend, the newspaper said Sunday.
The 37th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded at a ceremony during this weekend’s LA Times Book Fair.
A ceremony recognized outstanding literary achievement in 11 categories, including the new Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose.
Novelist Thomas McGuane was honored with the 2016 Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. He has been hailed as “the greatest writer of American loneliness that we have” by a scholarly journal.
Rueben Martinez received the Innovator’s Award for his work honoring Latino writers. He has used his family’s immigrant experience as a thread in a tapestry of writings about chasing the American dream.
The Times’ 2016 Book Prizes Winners include:
— Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Nathan Hill, “The Nix,” Alfred A. Knopf
— Biography: Volker Ullrich, “Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939,” Alfred A. Knopf.
— Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose: “Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement,” Little, Brown and Company.
— Current Interest: Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich, “Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets,” Random House
— Fiction: Adam Haslett, “Imagine Me Gone,” Little, Brown and Company.
— Graphic Novel/Comics: Nick Drnaso, “Beverly,” Drawn & Quarterly.
— History: Benjamin Madley, “An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873,” Yale University Press.
— Mystery/Thriller: Bill Beverly, “Dodgers,” Crown.
— Poetry: Rosmarie Waldrop, “Gap Gardening: Selected Poems,” New Directions.
— Science & Technology: Luke Dittrich, “Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets,” Random House.
— Young Adult Literature: Frances Hardinge, “The Lie Tree,” Harry N. Abrams.
