2005 Literary Awards Winners

PEN Center USA honored the winners of its 2005 Literary Awards at the 15th Annual Literary Awards Festival and Gala Dinner on November 9, 2005 at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to the Literary Awards, five honorary awards were given as well as three awards to PEN in the Classroom high school students. The event was MC’ed by KPFK radio host Ian Masters.

The event began with a stirring video tribute to writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-wiwa was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995 for his activities in opposition to the environmental looting of his people’s lands by Shell Oil and the Nigerian government.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Gore Vidal by noted playwright David Mamet, for a superlative body of work that has helped to define the United States and its history.

HBO, “in acknowledgment of its ongoing attempts to expand the boundaries, subjects and quality of television programming,” received the Award of Honor, given each year to a person or institution whose efforts have significantly affected our culture.

A special Courageous Advocacy Award was presented to Bill Moyers for his passionate, outspoken commitment to freedom of speech and his dedication to journalistic integrity. Unable to attend because he and his wife were celebrating their wedding anniversary in Greece, Mr. Moyers accepted via videotape.

The Freedom to Write International Award went to journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who was jailed for 17 months by the government of Bangladesh for his activities in pursuit of a peaceful dialogue between Bangladesh and Israel. Still prohibited from leaving Bangladesh, PEN USA Board member Loraine Despres accepted on his behalf.

Poet Sam Hamill, founder of Poets Against War, was honored with the Freedom to Write First Amendment Award.

In additon PEN USA gave awards to three high school students who participated in the PEN in the Classroom program. The winners were: Cindy Gonzalez from Hollywood High School for her story My Solution, Viviana Hernandez from Fairfax High School for her poem Stone, and Shacy Villatoro from Fairfax High School for her poem My City.

PEN Center USA’s annual awards program, established in 1982, is a unique regional competition that recognizes literary excellence in ten categories, including nonfiction, fiction, poetry and screen and theatrical plays. Distinguished panels of judges comprised of writers, editors and journalists selected this year’s winners and finalists from more than 500 entries; Los Angeles Times Deputy Op-Ed Editor Susan Brenneman served as chair of judges.

Each winner received a $1,000 cash prize and was granted PEN USA membership, if he or she was not already a member.

2005 Awards Winners

Fiction

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MICHELINE AHARONIAN MARCOM

The Daydreaming Boy: A Novel

(Riverhead Books)

The Daydreaming Boy is that rare thing: a beautiful, haunting, lyrical book about tragedy and its aftermath. It elucidates, in a voice like no other, how the past has the power to continually inhabit the present. In its exploration of the dim, suppressed history of one man--an orphan from the Armenian genocide—Marcom challenges what we, as readers, are willing to contemplate, and leaves
us infinitely richer for the experience.

FINALISTS:

SONORA BABB Whose Names Are Unknown (University of Oklahoma Press)

LOUISE ERDRICH Four Souls (HarperCollins)

MARK SPRAGG An Unfinished Life: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf)

Anthony Doerr About Grace (Scribner)

JUDGES:

Anna Linzer (chair), Christina Garcia, Laura Pritchett

Creative Nonfiction

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Andrew Todhunter

A Meal Observed

(Alfred A. Knopf)

The Judges say: “Andrew Todhunter’s A Meal Observed is centrally organized around a meal that he and his wife enthusiastically consumed at what might be the finest restaurant in Paris, and therefore possibly the finest in the world. The author describes the event, course by course, from their arrival to their departure four hours later, with an immediacy that brings the reader to the table as a third, invisible guest. But the reader also spends time in the kitchen, where the author served for several months surrounding this meal as an apprentice and observer. The acquired context enriches the narrative at almost every mouthful, giving the book a structure that can only be called brilliant. As the central character of this unexpected drama, Todhunter is not a know-it-all restaurant critic but just a curious man writing about his love of life and love of people. Intimidated as a diner in these illustrious surroundings, he endearingly captures the self-consciousness that comes with the fear of taking a huge misstep in the course of a classically French experience.”

FINALISTS:

Eric Hansen The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters With Strangers (Pantheon)

Michael Ryan Baby B (Graywolf Press)

Barbara Sjoholm The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea (Seal Press)

Jennifer Vogel Flim-Flam Man: A True Family History (Scribner)

JUDGES:

David Carkeet (chair), Mona Gable, Robin Rauzi

Research Nonfiction

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Evan Wright

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War

(G.P. Putnam's Sons)

The Judges say: “Evan Wright drops the reader in the midst of war, showing all of its horror and hilarity. Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War is beautifully written, and Wright honors his rich material and indelible characters with seemingly effortless prose. But among his greatest achievements is his ability to be honest about his experiences without putting himself or his own exhaustive reporting at the center of the work. Instead, what stays with the reader are the warriors and the war.”

FINALISTS:

Ed Cray Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie (W.W. Norton & Co.)

Reviel Netz Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity (Wesleyan University Press)

William Souder Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America (North Point Press)

Richard Rhodes John James Audubon: The Making of an American (Alfred A. Knopf)

JUDGES:

Nick Riccardi (chair), Robert Abele, BJ Robbins

Poetry

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Martha Ronk

In a Landscape of Having to Repeat

(Omnidawn)

The Judges say: “Martha Ronk’s In a Landscape of Having to Repeat is a collection of poetic meditations on repetition. In these lean, clean blank verse and prose poems, Ronk plays with how creatures of habit (dutiful as we are to necessary repetition (say, bodily functions, memory) and selective repetition (say, watching TV)), attempt to repeat once-and-only-once experiences that cannot without difficulty be repeated. The poems are narrative and semi-narrative views of landscape, moving toward, away from and through Ronk’s linguistic flora, Freud’s dream theories, Eva Hesse’s intentionally deteriorating props and sculptures; delightful. 

Once and again, In a Landscape of Having to Repeat is an addictively liberating poetic exploration of repetition in familiar and new language we are honored to select Martha Ronk for writing. Word for word, right down to the title askew and the two poems of the same title, Martha Ronk’s In a Landscape of Having to Repeat is a delightful addition to our contemporary literary canon.”

FINALISTS:

Rae Armantrout Up to Speed: Poems (Wesleyan University Press)

Norman Dubie Ordinary Mornings of a Coliseum (Copper Canyon Press)

Claudia Keelan The Devotion Field (Alice James Books)

D.A. Powell Cocktails (Graywolf Press)

JUDGES:

Merilene Murphy (chair), Timothy Liu, Susan McCabe

Children's Literature

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Ursula K. Le Guin

Gifts

(Harcourt, Inc.)

The Judges say: “Gifts confirms Ursula Le Guin’s ability to invent a country where the natural and supernatural seem both harrowing and mundane.  In the Uplands, families fear one another because of their inherited gifts: the power to destroy both enemies and kin with “a glance, a gesture, a word.” The book asks a question of great moral weight: what if your great-great grandfather, from a very early age, had the power to kill whatever he looked upon?  What if his temper grew worse and worse, until, after killing what he loved most, his only means of control was to blind himself?  What if you inherited this power? Gifts is a novel of startling grace and mythological complexity, and it manages to be both hopeful and truthful about genetic destiny and personal will. “

FINALISTS:

Kathi Appelt My Father's Summers: A Daughter's Memoir (Henry Holt and Company)

Deb Caletti

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers)

Nancy Farmer The Sea of Trolls (Richard Jackson/Atheneum Books for Young Readers)

Julie Schumacher Grass Angel (Delacourt Press)

JUDGES:

Stephanie Hemphill (chair), Laura McNeal, Janet Wong

Translation

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Robert Alter

The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary

(W.W. Norton & Company)

The Judges say: “It is difficult to describe the impact of Robert Alter’s wonderful rendering of the Torah. In the first place, the characters—all of them: Sarah, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, even Moses himself--have been given added dimension through Mr. Alter’s magical interpretation of the ancient language. By means of an exhaustive examination of linguistic options, his selection of the most fitting word or phrase involves to some extent a recasting of the stories which comprise the traditional Pentateuch. The account of Jacob and Esau, for example, is somewhat altered, redacted into a terse masterpiece of guile and deceit and abandonment, underscored and supported by his marvelous commentary, which is simply awesome in its display of scholarship and biblical knowledge. The juxtaposition of the Commentary with the text is an amazing achievement, serving to clarify and enhance the narrative in a new and sometimes breathtaking version. In effect, Mr. Alter has created a slightly different view of the Torah, offering a distinctive and exciting vocabulary for readers to experience the words of God. We would call this translation the most important reworking of a masterpiece that we have encountered. It is at once a revolutionary adaptation of the five books of Moses and also a valuable document for scholars and everyday readers who wish to study the Pentateuch.”

FINALISTS:

Philip Boehm Death in Danzig by Stefan Chwin (Harcourt, Inc.)

Jennifer Lee and Timothy Tangherlini Your Paradise by Yi Ch’ǒngjun (Green Integer)

Donald Revell The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire by Guillaume Apollinaire (Wesleyan University Press)

Steven J. Stewart Devoured by the Moon: Selected Poems by Rafael Pérez Estrada (Hanging Loose Press)

JUDGES:

Jim Barnes (chair), Lucia Guerra Cunningham, Amanda Powell

Journalism

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Meredith May

"Operation Lion Heart"

(San Francisco Chronicle)

The Judges say: ‘“Operation Lion Heart” by Meredith May grippingly reconstructs an unlikely international saga of mercy that began when a nine-year-old Iraqi boy walking home from school picked up an American cluster bomb, thinking it was a ball. The blast blew off his hands, ripped out his left eye and tore open his belly. His brother did not survive. May picked up the story the day after Saleh Khalaf and his grieving father arrived from their rural village at a hospital in Oakland, California. Through diligent and sensitive reporting, she discovered that Saleh had cheated the odds several times to get that far. His first break came when wary U.S. soldiers at Tallil Air Base felt moved by a father’s desperation, and the Air Force surgeon who took a look decided to help despite every indication that the shattered boy asking in Arabic for a drink of water would soon die. In Oakland, his life was carefully put back together by strangers in a strange land who opened up their hearts. May’s pursuit of the story took her ten months, and ultimately led her to Jordan where she found Saleh’s mother and traveled with her to the Bay Area. Told in three parts in the San Francisco Chronicle, the series achieved the elusive quality of a touching its readers without slipping into excessive emotion-jerking. After the series ran, U.S. authorities granted Saleh and his family asylum to remain in this country with their new friends.”

FINALISTS:

Mark Arax "A Father's Murder" (Los Angeles Timess)

Gustavo Arellano "Hail the Hesitant Hero" (OC Weekly)

Ann Louise Bardach "Taming the Hydra-Headed Carnivorous Beast" (Los Angeles Magazine)

Seth Rosenfeld "Mario Savio's FBI Odyssey" (San Francisco Chronicle)

JUDGES:

Kevin Roderick (chair), Joy Horowitz, Robert Scheer

Drama

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Sarah Ruhl

The Clean House

(Yale Repertory Theatre)

The Judges say: “In The Clean House, Sarah Ruhl creates a completely unpredictable and original play by transforming the expectations of a domestic comedy.  The concepts of ‘home’ and ‘family’ lose their borders in this celebration of messiness – the recklessness of emotions, the uncertainty of human bonds, and the whimsy of fate.  She uses the full palette of the stage to support her transforming vision, conjuring a poetry of images to accompany the poetry of her words. With a huge theatrical heart, Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House offers lessons on the importance of love and laughter—and of a good joke.  Real and surreal, humorous and human, The Clean House shows us how an open heart leads to an open home, and vice versa.  Sarah Ruhl’s unique theatrical and comic voice lovingly proves that cleaning and laughter are good for the heart, and how forgiveness is some of the best medicine.”

FINALISTS:

Shem Bitterman The Circle (Circus Theatricals)

Athol Fugard Exits and Entrances (The Fountain Theatre)

Caridad Svich Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Once Was Her Heart (7 Stages)

C. Denby Swanson Death of a Cat (Salvage Vanguard Theater)

JUDGES:

Bart DeLorenzo (chair), Liz Engelman, Bonnie Metzgar

Teleplay

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SALLY ROBINSON and EUGENIA BOSTWICK SINGER & RAYMOND SINGER and JENNIFER FRIEDES

Iron Jawed Angels

(HBO)

The Judges say: “Iron Jawed Angels is a script whose fast-moving storytelling, visual adventurousness, and heartfelt sense of moral outrage make it a work of exceptional power. [The writers’] daring screenplay—half music video, half-Masterpiece Theatre—makes the efforts of Alice Paul and her compatriots in the suffrage movement feel as exciting and necessary as ever, and offers actors, designers and director with an exciting platform from which to leap and excel. By offering jaded, post-modern viewers such a glittering and accessible reminder of the sacrifices made by heroic women to secure the right to vote, i.e., to be fully human in a democratic society, [the writers have] provided a service that extends far beyond the capacity of most made-for-television movies. Iron Jawed Angels is, more than anything else, a bold chance taken: something of which the women it exists to commemorate could be justifiably proud.”

FINALISTS:

Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (HBO)

Anne Meredith Cavedweller (Showtime)

Peter Silverman and Robert Caswell Something the Lord Made (HBO)

Yuri Zeltser & Cary Bickley Spinning Boris (Showtime)

JUDGES:

Craig Wright (chair), Heather Havrilesky, Laura Lexton

Screenplay

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Charlie Kaufman

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

(Focus Features)

When the judges chose Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind,
we responded unanimously to a script that’s more writerly than most
-- more writerly, in fact, than any screenplay in recent memory—
yet a script that served the director, Michel Gondry, in his
audacious exploration of the movie medium. The writer in question,
Charlie Kaufman, enjoys a singular status in today’s movie business,
which usually erases all traces of distinctive personality in movie
scripts, just as the dulcetly mad doctor played by Tom Wilkinson
tries to erase all traces of love in the star-crossed cortexes of the
hero and heroine played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Mr. Kaufman
is, wonder of wonders, a marquee name. Movie lovers turn out, as well
they might, to see movies because he wrote them. That was true of
Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Confessions Of a Dangerous
Mind. The judges salute Mr. Kaufman, a screen writer who writes
brilliantly—but really writes—for the screen.

FINALISTS:

Bill Condon Kinsey (American Zoetrope)

Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor Sideways (Fox Searchlight)

JOSÉ RIVERA The Motorcycle Diaries (South Fork/Focus Features)

James L. White Ray (Universal Pictures)

JUDGES:

Michael Elias (chair), David Kipen, Joe Morgenstern