Lily Tuck Wins the National Book Award for Fiction

Posted on November 20, 2004

Lily Tuck has won the National Book Award for Fiction for her book, The News From Paraguay, the fictionalized tale of Paraguayan leader Francisco Solano Lopez and his Irish mistress, Ella Lynch. The Nonfiction award went to Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle, which focuses on a black family's fight to live in a white Detroit neighborhood in the 1920s. Pete Hautman won the young people's literature prize for Godless, the story of a skeptical teenager who helps found a fanciful new religion, in which a water tower is transformed into a god. Jean Valentine won the poetry award with Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003.

Alas, The 9-11 Commission Report, the gripping and some say highly fictionalized account of the events leading up to 9-11 which was a finalist for the nonfiction award, went home empty-handed. We wish a hearty congratulations to all the winners.