United States Literary
Award – December 21, 2013
No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his
expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of
relics. It is something at once
more intimate to us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life
itself….Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of
generations and nations.…Their authors are a natural and irresistible
aristocracy in every society, and,
more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.
Henry David Thoreau,
Walden (1854)
The
United States Literary Award provides annual recognition for excellence in eight areas: non-fiction (35
categories), fiction (5 categories), poetry, drama, film (screenplay),
television (screenplay), music (lyrics), and lifetime achievement. The awards are officially announced on
the winter solstice (December 21st) at the web-site, through press-release, and
by mailed notice, including the certificate signed by the executive
director. All award decisions are
made on the basis of merit. A
self-published work or a work published by a literary press is accorded the
same respect as a work released by a major university press or a venerated national
house. The goal is to find, and
celebrate, excellence wherever it might be found, and share that discovery with
a new constituency. The 2013
awards recognize works published in 2012 and 2013.
Works
may be submitted in any category throughout the year to: John A. Murray, Executive Director,
USLA, P.O. Box 102345, Denver, Colorado 80250. There is no submission fee. All submissions will be acknowledged by e-mail. The current email address for the USLA
program is: johnallenmurray@gmail.com.
2013 Award Recipients
Non-Fiction (35 categories)
Nature: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and
Conservation, edited by Curt Meine (Library of America). Citation: A monumental tribute to the most
influential environmental leader and nature writer of the 20th Century. Leopold
led the effort for the creation of the world’s first designated wilderness area
(The Gila, 1924), which ultimately culminated in the Wilderness Act of 1964.
Fine Arts: Schenck in the 21st Century, The Myth of the Hero and the Truth of
America, by Amy Abrams (Western Skies Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico). Citation: Fusing the innovations of
Pop Art with the natural and human landscapes of the Southwest, Billy Schenck has
created a timeless body of work.
Autobiography/
Memoir: Waging Heavy Peace, by Neal
Young (Blue Rider Press).
Citation: Writing with
great skill and honesty, Neal Young presents a journey fully lived, and engages
his readers in the deeper narrative of his eventful era.
Translation: The
Ingenious Gentlemen and Poet Federico Garcia Lorca Ascends to Heaven, by Carlos
Rojas, translated by Edith Grossman (Yale University Press). Citation: This compact masterpiece evokes the magical
best of Spanish literature, from Cervantes to Marquez.
American
West: Wild, by Cheryl Strayed (Vintage).
Citation: A breathtaking
and revelatory work of personal exploration and transcendence.
Intellectual
History: Algerian Chronicles, by Albert Camus – edited by Alice Kaplan and
translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Harvard University Press). Citation: The
editor and translator are to be commended for providing readers with this indispensable
chronicle by the quintessential French philosopher of the 20th Century. Camus’s observations are timely and
relevant with respect to the Arab Spring, and are particularly germane vis-à-vis recent events in Syria.
Biography: Geronimo, by Robert Utley (Yale University Press). Citation: Robert Utley, the dean of western historians, has presented
readers with a definitive biography that has been researched and written in
accordance to the highest literary standards.
Philosophy:
Descartes’s Method of Doubt, by Janet Broughton (Princeton University
Press). Citation: Dr. Broughton
reminds us of Descartes’s primacy as a thinker who advanced skepticism and
doubt as vital tools in the search for the truth.
History: Empires, Nations & Families:
A History of the North American West, 1800 – 1860, by Anne F. Hyde
(University of Nebraska Press).
Citation: Working brilliantly in the tradition of Bernard de Voto and William
Goetzmann, the author explores the social changes that attended an age of transcendent
progress on the continent.
Anthropology/
Archaeology: Uncovering
History: Archaeological
Investigations at the Little Bighorn, by Douglas D. Scott (University of
Oklahoma Press). Citation: Douglas D. Scott has produced a stellar book for students and scholars on the
most important battle in the American West.
Environmental
Advocacy: Vanishing
Animals of East Africa, by Nick Brandt (Abrams). Nick Brandt is to be commended for this outstanding work of
environmental advocacy, written and illustrated in the crusader tradition of
John James Audubon, George Caitlin, and William Henry Jackson.
Essay: Letters to a Young Scientist, by E.O. Wilson (Norton) – Citation: Dr. Wilson distils a life-time of
wisdom into this radiant volume, which is as insightful as Rilke’s Letters to a
Young Poet or Camus’s Letters to a German Friend.
Illustration: All
of the Buildings of New York That I’ve Drawn So Far, by James Gulliver Hancock (Universe
Publishing). Citation: Hancock inspires us to regard the urban
landscape in new and liberating ways, as he “remaps” one of the great cities in
the history of the world.
Music: On the Horizon: Mississippi
Hill Country Blues 1967, by George Mitchell (University Press of
Mississippi). Citation: Mitchell takes us back to the
birthplace of the blues and re-acquaints us with one of the most vibrant
musical landscapes in modern times.
Law: Taking the Stand: My Life
in the Law, by Allan Derschowitz (Crown).
Citation: Professor
Derschowitz is the consummate American lawyer, and has remained vitally engaged
in the central legal issues of his era for half a century.
Classics: The Complete Greek Tragedies, by David Greene and Richard Lattimore,
third edition edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most (Princeton University
Press). Citation: No library,
public or private, can consider its collection on classical literature to be complete
without this wonderful new third edition.
American
East: The Secret Lives of Red Wolves:
The Fight to Save America’s Other Wolf, by T. Delene Beeland (University
of North Carolina Press).
Citation: The story of the
preservation of the red wolf attests to the best in the American spirit: reverence for life, love of wild
nature, and generosity.
Letters: The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume I, 1886 – 1921, Edited by Donald
Sheehy, Mark Richardson, and Robert Faggen (Harvard University Press). Citation: As with the letters of T.S. Eliot, the letters of Robert
Frost provide a rare in-depth look at the origins of modern poetry, as we witness
the flowering of a genius and a literary age.
Documentary
Photography: Curb Service, A Memoir by Scott Sothern (Counterpoint). Citation: In the tradition of Weegee, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Diane
Arbus, Scott Sothern preserves, in photographs and words, a rarely documented
part of society as he sees and experiences it.
Political
Science: Losing
the Center: The Decline of
American Liberalism, 1968 – 1992, by Jeffrey Bloodworth (University of Kentucky
Press). Citation: In this essential work, the author
documents, through detailed biographical and archival analysis, how the
Democratic party began to unravel as it drifted from the mainstream that had
sustained it from the 1930s through the early 1960s.
Jewish Studies: A Jewish Life
on Three Continents, by Menachem Mendel Frienden, translated by the author’s
grandson Lee Wiessbach (Stanford University Press Studies in Jewish History). Citation: This fascinating memoir,
originally written in Hebrew, takes us back to the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century, before Jewish life in Europe was changed forever. Stanford University Press is to commended
for this invaluable series.
Psychology: A Natural History of Human Thinking, by Robert Zaretsky (Harvard
University Press). Citation: The author explores the nature of human
consciousness with a vigorous and original approach, and makes a well-reasoned
case for the importance of social interaction.
Religion: Earthly Mission: The
Catholic Church and World Development, by Robert Calderisi (Yale University
Press). Citation: With 1.2 billion members, the Catholic
Church remains one of the unifying forces of civilization, and this fine book
pays fitting tribute to the complex role of the church as a stabilizing force in
the modern world.
Native
American: Sun Chief: The
Autobiography of a Hopi Indian, by Don C. Talavesya, edited by Leo W. Simmons
(Yale University Press). A rare
and exemplary book, first published in 1963, that ranks with Jason Betzinez’s I
Fought With Geronimo (1959) and
the account of Pretty Shield (Frank Lindermann, Red Mother, 1932) as one of the
classic biographies of American Indian life.
Asian studies: Lost
Enlightenment: Central Asia’s
Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, by S. Frederick Starr
(Princeton University Press).
Citation: A magisterial work of scholarship that takes us from the age
of Mohammed to Marlowe’s Tamerlane.
Science: Naturalists at Sea:
Scientific Travelers from Dampier to Darwin, by Glyn Williams (Yale
University Press). Citation: The early European
explorers – William Dampier, Joseph Banks, Captain Cook, La Perouse, Malaspina,
Charles Darwin – made exciting new scientific discoveries on every continent,
and helped lay the foundation for the modern world.
Fine Art
Photography: Absolution: Fifty
Photographs from Europe, by Roman Loranc (Photography West Graphics). Citation: For twenty years Roman Loranc has found rare beauty in the
urban and rural landscapes of Europe and America, and his new book is a
testament to the purity and strength of his creative genius.
Literary
Criticism: Parabolas of Science Fiction, by Brian Atterly and Veronica Hollinger
(Wesleyan University Press).
Citation: This book represents
a major breakthrough in the field of literary criticism, as it expands and
develops an exciting new approach for the analysis of a relatively new genre.
Mathematics: Love and
Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality,
by Edward Frankel (Basic Books). Citation: Dr. Frankel has produced a magnificent
overview of the challenges facing mathematicians as they seek to unify
disparate areas of research on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Islamic
Studies: Pakistan’s
Blasphemy Law, by Shememm Burney Abbas (University of Texas Press). Citation: This important work documents how the current rulers of
Pakistan have used blasphemy laws to suppress dissent and impose conformity
thinking on a people who yearn for freedom and are in desperate need of social
and economic justice.
Legal
Decision: Judge
Richard D. Leon, Klayman versus Obama, United States District Court for the District
of Columbia (December 16, 2013).
Citation: Judge Leon is to
be commended for the power of his reasoning and the eloquence of his writing in
this key 4th Amendment case. In
his 68-page decision he wrote: “I
have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who
cautioned us to ‘beware the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and
silent encroachment of those in power’ would be aghast.” His courageous ruling represents a significant
victory for the rule of law in our country, and is written in accordance to the
highest standards of his guild.
Education: The Program Era: Postwar
Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing, by Mark McGurl (Harvard University Press, new in
paperback). Citation: An exemplary book that honestly
appraises the efficacy of the AWP era, when universities profited at the
expense of credulous young writers, most of whom found no professional
employment and were faced with crippling debt.
Blogs: Jorma Kaukonen.
Citation: No one has done more
for American music than the former member of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot
Tuna, who now maintains an Appalachian music center on his southeastern Ohio
farm. His blogs are always a joy to
read, and will brighten any day.
Interviews:
Terry Southern, interviewed in 1967 by Maggie Paley, published
posthumously in 2012 as ‘The Art of Screen-writing” (The Paris Review). Citation: Terry Southern, who achieved cinematic excellence with the
screenplays for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Easy Rider (1969),
greatly advanced the literary form during the modern film era.
Newspaper
Columns: David
Brooks, New York Times.
Citation: David Brooks is,
simply put, a national treasure.
Poetry
W.S. Merwin: Collected
Poems, edited by J.D. McClatchy (Library of America). Citation: No other poet in the modern era has
created such a radiant, unified, and timeless body of work.
Fiction (5 categories)
Novel: House
of Earth, by Woody Guthrie (Harper Collins). Citation: This novel
forever enriches the cultural heritage of the United States, and enhances our understanding
of, and appreciation for, the father of modern folk and protest music.
Short Fiction:
The Corpse Washer, by Sinan Antoon, translated from the Arabic by the
author (Yale University Press).
Citation: Sinan Antoon
bears eloquent witness to an era of heart-breaking tragedy and violence in one
of the oldest cities in the world, Baghdad.
Fantasy: The Lord of Shadows, by Erin Ewer (Liquid Fae Studios, self-published). Citation: An outstanding achievement in one of the world’s most
ancient and distinguished genres.
Science
Fiction: The Dog
Stars, by Peter Heller (Vintage).
Citation: The author mixes
James Dickey and Cormac McCarthy and creates an end-of-the-world tale that is
full of strange twists and amazing surprises.
Crime/Mystery: The Rope, by Nevada Barr (St.
Martin’s). Citation: A dark desert tale that evokes The Woman
in The Dunes (1962) of Kobo Abe, as well as the myth of Sisyphus.
Music Lyrics
No award this year.
Drama
4000 Miles, by Amy Herzog. Citation: A resonant
play that focuses on two lives in transition that intersect, and are then forever
changed as a result. In its compression
and verisimilitude, it recalls the classic works of Tennessee Williams,William Inge,
and Horton Foote.
Film
Screenplay for Django Unchained, by Quentin Tarentino. Citation: This film confirms Quentin Tarentino’s mastery of the
literary form of screen-writing.
Television
Screenplay for Game of Thrones, Season III (HBO). Citation: The script mixes the lively spirit of the Elizabethan stage
with the best of modern British screen-writing to take the medium to an
entirely new level of serious drama.
Lifetime Achievement
Bob Dylan. Citation: For half
a century, beginning with his first album in 1962, Bob Dylan has created immortal
lyrics in the troubador tradition that began with Francois Villon, the venerated
father of French poetry.
