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Ambassador Book Award

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The Ambassador Book Award is awarded annually by the English Speaking Union. It recognizes important literary works that contribute to the understanding and interpretation of American life and culture. Winners of the award are considered literary ambassadors who provide, in the best contemporary English, an important window on America to the rest of the world. A panel of judges, currently chaired by author Maureen Howard,[1] selects books out of new works in the fields of fiction, biography, autobiography, current affairs, American studies and poetry.

The award was established in 1986. Since then, winners have included books by such notable authors as Tom Wolfe (1988), Joan Didion (1988), Raymond Carver (1989), Gore Vidal (1989), John Cheever (1992), John Updike (1997)[2], Don Delillo (1998), Philip Roth (1999)[3], and Annie Proulx (2000).

Recipients

2008

2007

  • American Studies - The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan
  • Autobiography - The Afterlife: A Memoir, by Donald Antrim
  • Biography - The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, by Debby Applegate
  • Current Affairs - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks
  • Fiction - The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel, by Amy Hempel
  • Poetry - Averno, by Louise Glück
  • Lifetime Achievement - Garry Wills

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

  • American Studies - In the Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Warship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick
  • Biography & Autobiography - The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, by David Nasaw
  • Lifetime Achievement - Arthur Schlesinger
  • Fiction - Angel on the Roof: The Stories of Russell Banks, by Russell Banks
  • Poetry - American Poerty: The Twentieth Century, 2 vols., by Hass, Hollander, Kizer, Mackey, Perloff

2000

  • American Studies - Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, by David M. Kennedy
  • Biography & Autobiography - Morgan: American Financier, by Jean Strouse
  • Fiction - Close Range: Wyoming Stories, by Annie Proulx
  • Poetry - Vita Nova, by Louise Glück

1999

  • American Studies - Slaves in the Family, by Edward Ball
  • Biography & Autobiography - N.C. Wyeth, by David Michaels
  • Fiction - I Married A Communist, by Philip Roth
  • Poetry - The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, by John Burt

1998

1997

  • American Studies - Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E. Ambrose
  • Biography & Autobiography - Taking on the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop- Guardians of the American Century, by Robert W. Merry
  • Fiction - In the Beauty of the Lilies, by John Updike
  • Poetry - The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966 - 1996, by Robert Pinsky

1996

  • American Studies - Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence, by John Hockenberry
  • Biography & Autobiography - Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography, by David S. Reynolds
  • Fiction - All the Days and Nights, by William Maxwell
  • Poetry - Atlantis, by Mark Doty

1995

  • American Studies - Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South, by John Egerton
  • Biography & Autobiography - No Ordinary Time Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Fiction - The Collected Stories, by Grace Paley
  • Poetry - Like Most Revelations, by Richard Howard

1994

1993

  • American Arts & Letters - Up in the Old Hotel, by Joseph Mitchell
  • American Studies - Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Worlds That Remade America, by Gary Wills
  • Biography & Autobiography - Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, by Scott Donaldson
  • Fiction - Outerbridge Reach, by Robert Stone

1992

1991

1990

  • American Arts & Letters - The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard
  • American Studies - Among Schoolchildren, by Tracy Kidder
  • Biography & Autobiography - This Boy's Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff
  • Fiction - Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, by Allan Gurganus

1989

  • American Arts & Letters - At Home: Essays 1982-1988, by Gore Vidal
  • American Studies - A Bright Shining Lie John Paul Vann in Vietnam, by Neil Sheehan
  • Biography & Autobiography - Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963, by Taylor Branch
  • Fiction - Where I'm Calling From: New & Selected Stories, by Raymond Carver

1988

  • American Arts & Letters - Collected Prose, by Robert Lowell
  • American Studies - Miami, by Joan Didion
  • Biography & Autobiography - Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright, by Brendan Gill
  • Fiction - The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe

1987

  • American Studies - Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Cultures, by Frances Fitzgerald
  • American Studies - The Cycles of American History, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
  • Biography & Autobiography - The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume I: 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America, by Arnold Rampersad
  • Fiction - Roger's Version, by John Updike

1986

References

  1. ^ ESU Programs - Ambassador Book Awards Committee
  2. ^ John Updike bio and awards at American Literature Web Resources
  3. ^ Houghton Mifflin list of awards won by Philip Roth
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