Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard Announce 2007 Lukas Prize Project Awards for
Exceptional Works of Nonfiction
New York, March 28, 2007 – The recipients of the 2007 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards include a stunning account of the events leading up to the destruction of the World Trade Center by Lawrence Wright; a moving chronicle of the search for a homecoming by Americans of African descent, by James T. Campbell; and a harrowing exploration of Hoop Spur, Arkansas in 1919, when white mobs and federal troops converged to suppress a nascent sharecroppers union, by Robert Whitaker.
The awards were presented by Garrison Keillor at a ceremony on Tuesday, May 8, at Columbia’s Journalism School.
The prizes, established in 1998 and co-administered by the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University, recognize excellence in nonfiction writing, works that exemplify the literary grace, commitment to serious research and social concern that characterized the distinguished work of the awards’ Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake J. Anthony Lukas, who died in 1997.
One of the three prizes, The Mark Lynton History Prize, is named for the late Mark Lynton, business executive and author of Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee’s Memoir of World War II. Lynton was an avid proponent of the writing of history and the Lynton Family has sponsored the Lukas Prize Project since its inception.
Following are the winners, finalists, judges and the judges’ citations.
J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE ($10,000):
Lawrence Wright for The Looming Tower: Al Quaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Alfred A. Knopf)
 “In The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright has brilliantly brought into focus the history of events leading up to the destruction of the World Trade Center. It’s a stunning example of narrative nonfiction by a master journalist; a tribute to the distinguished writer J. Anthony Lukas and to the award that bears his name. During five years of research, Wright conducted hundreds of interviews in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Afghanistan, Europe and the United States. The result is an epic tale—part thriller, part tragedy—told through the lives of four men: the two leaders of Al Qaeda, the FBI's counter intelligence chief, and the former head of Saudi intelligence. This remarkable interweaving of their stories—never fully told before—sheds new light on everything from terrorist plots and CIA failures to the tumultuous cross currents of modern Islam.”
The judges named three finalists: Taylor Branch for At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968 (Simon and Schuster); Michael Isikoff and David Corn for Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown); and Melissa Faye Greene for There is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children (Bloomsbury USA).
Judges for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize were Patricia Bosworth, Nate Blakeslee, and Kai Bird.
James T. Campbell
MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE ($10,000):
James T. Campbell for Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 (The Penguin Press)
 “Middle Passages chronicles the search for a homecoming by Americans of African descent in the two hundred and twenty years since the foundation of the United States. James T. Campbell eloquently narrates the human drama of their voyages, the creativity of their visions, and the complexity of their discoveries. Campbell’s taut account is made all the more moving by its elegant restraint in portraying these emotionally charged journeys to Africa, to the roots of identity, and almost always to the question, ‘What is America to me?’ This brilliant, surprising, and powerful book offers a compelling historical meditation on our widely shared desire to venture beyond the present to navigate the middle passage between the mysteries of our past and the uncertainties of our future.”
Two finalists were named: Marci Shore for Caviar and Ashes (Yale University Press); and Peniel E. Joseph for Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour (Henry Holt and Company).
Judges for the Mark Lynton History Prize were: Akira Iriye, Michael Johnson, and Bonnie G. Smith.
Robert Whitaker
J. ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD ($30,000):
Robert Whitaker for Twelve Condemned to Die: Scipio Africanus Jones and The Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation (to be published by Crown).
The Lukas Work-in-Progress Award is given each year to assist in the completion of a significant work of narrative nonfiction on an American topic of political or social concern.
“Robert Whitaker’s work-in-progress presents a harrowing exploration of Hoop Spur, Arkansas in 1919, when white mobs and federal troops converged to suppress a nascent sharecroppers’ union, killing more than 100 black men, women and children. With reportorial incision and a flair for both narrative and analysis, Whitaker has excavated ‘a history that is unknown to most Americans and yet is central to understanding our past – and present.’ It is a tale of bravery and oppression in the rural south at the end of World War I, an epic of class and prejudice, rebellion and bloodshed leading all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court – and setting the legal stage for the civil rights movement more than half a century later.”
One finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award was also named: Michael Punke for Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West (to be published by Smithsonian Books).
Judges for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award were Francis X. Clines, Elinor Langer, and Joan Quigley.
The J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Committee
Arthur Gelb, author, and Linda Healey, editor and Mr. Lukas’ widow, are co-chairs of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Committee. Other members are Jonathan Alter, author and Newsweek columnist; Alan Brinkley, Columbia University Provost and Allan Nevins Professor of History; Ellen Chesler, author; Phyllis Grann, editor; Robert Giles, curator, Nieman Foundation; Vartan Gregorian, president, The Carnegie Corporation; Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists; Nicholas Lemann, Dean of Columbia’s Journalism School; Lili Lynton, business consultant; Marion Lynton, Mr. Lynton’s widow; Kati Marton, author and human rights activist; and Rosalind Rosenberg, Professor of History at Barnard College.
About Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
For almost a century, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has been preparing journalists in a program that stresses academic rigor, ethics, journalistic inquiry and professional practice. Founded by Joseph Pulitzer in 1912, the school offers master of science, master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees.
About Columbia University
Founded in 1754 as King’s College, Columbia University in the City of New York is the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and today is one of the world’s leading academic and research institutions. For more information about Columbia University, visit www.columbia.edu.
For further information, please call (212) 854-9938 or e-mail sib2105@columbia.edu.
|
Transcript
RSS