1999 National Book Award Winners Happy birthday National Book Awards! America's preeminent literary prizes celebrated their 50th anniversary with a star-studded dinner and awards ceremony. The main attraction, however, was not Oprah Winfrey or Steve Martin, but the winners themselves--and there are a few surprises among them. The fiction prize went to "Waiting," Ha Jin's graceful take on marital gridlock and totalitarian politics, while John Dower's groundbreaking "Embracing Defeat" won top nonfiction honors. The other winners were Ai for her searing poetry collection "Vice" and Kimberly Willis Holt for her gentle coming-of-age tale, "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town." Read on for more details about this year's prizewinning books. Fiction: "Waiting" by Ha Jin http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375406530/entertainmentsit "Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, "Waiting" uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese Army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet). Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life--at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Nonfiction: "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" by John W. Dower http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393046869/entertainmentsit "Embracing Defeat" tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II. When Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces in August 1945, it was exhausted; where America's Pacific combat lasted less than four years, Japan had been fighting for 15. Sixty percent of its urban area lay in ruins. The collapse of the authoritarian state enabled America's six-year occupation to set Japan in entirely new directions. Poetry: "Vice: New and Selected Poems" by Ai http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393047059/entertainmentsit You know the age-old question: Suppose you could handpick a cast of living or dead characters and have them all to dinner. Who would you ask? In this searing collection, Ai does the difficult work of choosing for us. She invites a whole host of often less-than-presentable guests, including presidents ("I have a deep affection for my wife, / but also for sweet, big-haired girls... who never complain of tired jaws"), paparazzi ("I am there for you, / a friend, not an enemy, / stalkerazzi, or a tabloid Nazi"), and prurient priests ("Lord, I crave things"). Young People's Literature: "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town" by Kimberly Willis Holt http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805061169/entertainmentsit Summer in the tiny Texas town of Antler is traditionally a time for enjoying Wylie Womack's Bahama Mama snow cones and racking up the pins at Kelly's Bowl-a-Rama, but this year it's not going well for Toby Wilson. His 13-year-old heart has been broken twice: once by his mother, who left him and his father to become a country singer in Nashville, and then again by his crush Scarlett Stalling, the town beauty who barely acknowledges Toby's existence. But when Zachary Beaver, "The World's Fattest Boy," comes to Antler as part of a traveling sideshow, Toby begins to realize that there might just be people who have it worse than him. For a list of past winners as well as this year's finalists, visit our National Book Awards page at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=entertainmentsit&path=subst/lists/awards/nba-winners.html ****** You'll find more great books, articles, excerpts, and interviews in Amazon.com's Award Winners section at Award Winners ******
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