Eight writers, including St. Paul novelist Marlon James, have won Arts and Letters Awards in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The awards celebrate "exceptional accomplishment in literature" and are worth $10,000 each.
And Edina native Emily Fridlund has won the academy's Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for her novel, "History of Wolves," which was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize. Fridlund also won the Mary McCarthy Award Prize in Short Fiction for her story collection, "Catapult."James won the Man Booker Prize in 2015 for his novel, "A Brief History of Seven Killings." He teaches English at Macalester College in St. Paul, where he is the college's first writer-in-residence.
Here are all the winners:
Arts and Letters Awards in Literature
Claire Cavanagh; Mary Gaitskill; Ishion Hutchinson; Marlon James; Kay Redfield Jamison; Rick Moody; Mary Robison; Brenda Shaughnessy.
E.M. Forster Award in Literature
Jon McGregor
Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
Emily Fridlund for "History of Wolves"
Katherine Anne Porter Award in Literature
Noy Holland
Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Literature
Hannah Lillith Assadi for "Sonora."
Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award in Literature
Atticus Lish
Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation
Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Morton Dawen Zabel Award in Literature
Elaine Scarry
The American Academy was founded in 1898. This year's judges were Joy Williams, Russell Banks, Henri Cole, Amy Hempel and Anne Tyler. The awards ceremony will take place in New York in May.
