ALA Awards First Carnegie Medals for Fiction and Nonfiction

On Monday, June 25, the American Library Association announced the first recipients of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, funded through a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz (W. W. Norton) won the medal for fiction and Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Random House) received the nonfiction prize. The medals recognize the best in fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published the previous year in the United States as selected by library professionals who work closely with adult readers. The selections were unveiled during the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California.

This is the first time that ALA, which sponsors the John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott Medals for children’s literature and other youth media awards, has presented single-book awards for adult trade fiction and nonfiction. ALA noted that “in a year without a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, this award becomes even more meaningful for the literary community.” In October 2011, The Forgotten Waltz was named an Indie Next List Great Read by the independent bookstore members of the American Booksellers Association. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman was named an Indie Next List Great Read in December 2011 and was selected by indie booksellers as a 2012 Indies Choice Book Award honoree.

The Andrew Carnegie Medals were made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and are co-sponsored by ALA’s Booklist magazine and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). Enright and Massie each receive a medal and $5,000, and each finalist receives $1,500.

Fiction finalists included Lost Memory of Skin, by Russell Banks (Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers), an October 2011 Indie Next List Great Read, and Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House), a February 2011 Indie Next List Great Read and a Summer 2012 Indie Next List for Reading Groups pick.

Nonfiction finalists included The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, by James Gleick (Pantheon Books/Random House), and Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by the late Manning Marable (Viking Penguin/Penguin Group USA).

Members of the 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction inaugural selection committee included Chair Nancy Pearl; A. Issac Pulver, director, Saratoga Springs (New York) Public Library; Nonny Schlotzhauer, librarian, Collection Development/Social Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Danise Hoover, associate librarian, Public Services, Hunter College Library, New York; Brad Hooper, editor, Adult Books, Booklist, Chicago; Donna Seaman, senior editor, Adult Books, Booklist, Chicago; and Rebecca Vnuk, editor, Reference and Collection Management, Booklist, Chicago.