The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation announced the finalists for its annual awards and named Sandra Cisneros as the winner of its annual Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.
Cisneros is the author of many books, including The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, and Martita, I Remember You. In a statement, Nicholas A. Raines, the foundation’s executive director, called the author “the embodiment of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundations’ values of peace and understanding” and praised her “empathetic, perceptive voice.”
The Holbrooke Award, named after the diplomat who brokered the accords that ended the Bosnian War, is given to “a writer whose body of work fosters peace and global understanding.” Past winners have included Elie Wiesel and Margaret Atwood.
The foundation also revealed the shortlists for their fiction and nonfiction prizes, which honor “work [that] uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.”
In fiction, the finalists are Noah Hawley for Anthem, Vauhini Vara for The Immortal King Rao, James Hannaham for Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, Lily Brooks-Dalton for The Light Pirate, Geraldine Brooks for Horse, and Susan Straight for Mecca.
The nonfiction finalists are Adam Hochschild for American Midnight, Catherine Ceniza Choy for Asian American Histories of the United States, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa for His Name Is George Floyd, Putsata Reang for Ma and Me, Ben Rawlence for The Treeline, and Zarifa Ghafari with Hannah Lucinda Smith for Zarifa.
The winners of the awards will be announced on Oct. 10.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
