Eula Biss Wins Prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award
March 12, 2010--Graywolf Press is pleased to announce that
Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss has been selected as the
winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. The
winners were announced last night during a ceremony at the New School's Tishman
Auditorium.
Jeffrey Shotts, senior editor at Graywolf Press, was
thrilled with the news. "The NBCC Awards are one of the majors," he
said. "It's gratifying to have an award come out of such a large and
distinguished body of critics and writers and serious people about the art and
craft of literature. We couldn't
be prouder of Eula Biss."
Notes from No Man's Land: American
Essays was named a best book of the year by Time Out Chicago and a School
Library Journal Best Adult Book for High School Students. Biss's spare,
sometimes lyric essays explore the legacy of race in America, artfully revealing
in intimate detail how families, schools, and neighborhoods participate in
preserving racial privilege. National Public Radio called the collection
"forceful, beautiful essays," and the Chicago Tribune said "Biss
is telling us the story of our country--one we never saw coming." The book
won the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Read more...
By Ros Schwartz and Lulu Norman and Aziz Chouaki “What starts out as a novel about sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll ends up
as a warning of how the most unlikely person can convert to religious
fanaticism. Chouaki, exiled in France since 1991, writes in a
vivacious, telegraphic style that clearly delineates both the Algerian
entertainment underworld and the asphyxiating totalitarianism of
fanaticism, which few Americans comprehend.” —Library Journal
By J. Robert Lennon "Pieces for the Left Hand consists of 100 very short stories. . . in which not a word is wasted, and not one of which could be cut. Despite the self-deprecating title, the collection is anything but offhand: it is a rigorous display of storytelling verve, quantity, and control. . . It is his most perfect work so far."
By Charles Simic FORTHCOMING MAY 2010
“Charles Simic has performed a great service by
reminding us, precisely at this moment of turmoil and destruction, that ‘there
are still poets and beautiful poems to be discovered and read with lasting
pleasure in this vile old world.’”
