Fran Lebowitz, Kazuo Ishiguro & More to Join The Center For Fiction's Annual Awards Benefit

Eminences of the literary community and publishing worlds will gather at Cipriani 25 Broadway on Tuesday, December 7th at 6:30 p.m. in honor of The Center for Fiction's Annual Awards Benefit and 200th Anniversary Celebration.

The night will be emceed by acclaimed author and wit Fran Lebowitz, and will toast the winners of several prestigious literary awards.

Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro will be honored with The Center for Fiction Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award. To mark the occasion, he will be interviewed by David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker. The inaugural Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award was bestowed on Toni Morrison in 2018.

The Center for Fiction On Screen Award, which honors groundbreaking original works of film and television that mirror the complexity and vision of great novels, will be presented to series creator and director Barry Jenkins and author Colson Whitehead for the Amazon Studios/Prime Video adaptation of The Underground Railroad.

Mitzi Angel, incoming President and Publisher of Benefit Corporate Sponsor Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will be honored in celebration of Farrar, Straus and Giroux's 75th anniversary.

Board Member Jacqueline Woodson will be introducing The Center for Fiction Medal for Editorial Excellence, the first awarded to an editor of young people's literature. Children's book author and illustrator Grace Lin will present the award to Alvina Ling, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

The winner of The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize will also be announced. Selected by a panel of distinguished American writers-Alexander Chee, Susan Choi, Yaa Gyasi, Dinaw Mengestu, and last year's winner, Raven Leilani- the winner will be presented with a $15,000 prize by Leilani. The 2021 shortlist is as follows:

The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri (Restless Books)

Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng (Simon & Schuster)

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (HarperCollins/Harper)

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith (Penguin Random House/Random House)

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (Penguin Random House/Riverhead Books)

Brood by Jackie Polzin (Penguin Random House/Doubleday)

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (W. W. Norton & Company)

Musical guest, Grammy Award-winning artist David Murray will perform.

The Center for Fiction's 200th Anniversary marks its founding in 1821 as the Mercantile Library of New York. Since then, the organization has played a vital role in the literary life of New York City, and on the country's cultural landscape as a whole. Throughout The Center's two centuries, it has championed the art of storytelling, led the way in increasing access to literature for all, and served as a dynamic home for diverse readers and writers of all ages.

Prior to the Benefit, the First Novel Prize finalists will be celebrated at the First Novel Fete at The Center for Fiction on Friday, December 3rd at 6:30 p.m. The evening includes a reading by actors from the shortlisted novels, followed by a cocktail hour featuring a performance by Linda Diaz and literary tarot readings.

Further appearances at the Benefit and Fete will be announced.

Said The Center for Fiction's Executive Director Traci Lester, "From debut novelists to publishing veterans with storied careers, the honorees of the Annual Awards Benefit represent the breadth of our mission as a center for writers and readers. I'm thrilled that our 200th anniversary celebrates such an extraordinary lineup of authors, publishers, and creators."

Funds raised by the Annual Awards Benefit and The First Novel Fete will support The Center for Fiction's public performance events, KidsRead/KidsWrite programming, and Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowships.

The Benefit Chairs are Mary Jo and Ted Shen, and Co-Chairs are Jelani Cobb, Michael Cunningham, Wendy Gimbel, Mitchell S. Jackson, Celia and Henry McGee, Lynn Nesbit, and Salman Rushdie. The Fete Co-Chairs are Pilar Garcia-Brown (Dutton), Jenna Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and May-Zhee Lim (Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House).

Learn More: https://centerforfiction.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.