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The 50th running of the National Book Awards in New York November 17 offered show-business star turns in the form of Steve Martin and Oprah Winfrey, and winners that, at least in fiction and nonfiction, confounded most expert predictions.
A larger-than-usual crowd of more than 1000 heard emcee Martin offer a droll take on a confusion of the event with the National Basketball Association, saying it was a different crowd than he had expected, but "I guess you're all managers." He also advised the nominated writers to "keep your acceptances short, especially if you don't win."
National Book Foundation president Neil Baldwin offered the group's 50th anniversary gold medal to TV show host Winfrey for everything she had done for books with her TV book club and its "magical ability to create bestsellers." Winfrey herself said, "I respect, admire and adore authors," for it was books that had helped her see a world beyond the poverty of her Mississippi upbringing. The books she chose were sometimes ones she discovered herself, sometimes were passed along by her staff, but "I have to like it a lot."
The P try award went to Ai for her collection Vice, published by Norton, chosen by the judges from a field of over 100 entries.
John W. Dower won in Nonfiction for his Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, copublished by Andre Schiffrin at the New Press and Ed Barber at Norton, both of whom, along with his agent. Georges Borchardt, Dower thanked in his brief acceptance.
Dower won out over such strong candidates as Judith Thurman, Natalie Angier and Mark Bowden, but perhaps an even bigger surprise was the Fiction award to Chinese-American author Hai Jin for Waiting, published by Pantheon; Kent Haruf's Plainsong had been a widely touted favorite. Hai said he was "deeply honored" and "grateful to the English language for giving me a home."
The Young People's Literature award went to Kimberly Wills Holt for When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, published by Henry Holt.
Martin ended the evening on a note of comic urgency by urging all those who wanted to be nominated next year to "start writing now!"
