Walter Mosley will receive the National Book Foundation’s lifetime achievement award.
How about some terrific morning literary news to brighten your day? Is that a “yes” I hear? Well, today the National Book Foundation announced that Walter Mosley, author of the highly-regarded Devil in a Blue Dress, will be awarded the 2020 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
The award was created in 1988 to recognize a lifetime of literary achievement, and in its 32-year history, Mosley is the first Black man to win the medal. Previous winners include Toni Morrison, Edmund White, and Isabel AIlende. Edwidge Danticat, who is a two-time National Book Award Finalist, will present the award to Mosley.
“Mosley is undeniably prolific, but what sets his work apart is his examination of both complex issues and intimate realities through the lens of characters in his fiction, as well as his accomplished historical narrative works and essays,” said Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, in a press release. “His oeuvre and his lived experience are distinctly part of the American experience. And as such, his contributions to our culture make him more than worthy of the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.”
Mosley is the author of more than sixty books; his latest is the novel Trouble Is What I Do.
[h/t AP News]
