Awards: Walter Scott Historical Fiction; Pritzker Military Writing

Sebastian Barry became the first two-time winner of the £25,000 (about $31,585) Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction with his novel Days Without End. In 2012, his book On Canaan's Side took the award. The Scott Prize "celebrates quality, innovation and longevity of writing in the English language, and is open to books first published in the previous year in the U.K., Ireland or the Commonwealth. Reflecting the subtitle 'Sixty Years Since' of Scott's most famous work Waverley, the majority of the storyline must have taken place at least 60 years ago."

The judges said their decision "was one of the hardest the Walter Scott Prize has ever had to make. With all seven books on the shortlist having strong supporters on the judging panel who championed their cause in a protracted and passionate debate about the nature and purpose of historical fiction, the very books themselves seemed to fight tooth and nail for the accolade.

"Eventually, Days Without End took the lead, for the glorious and unusual story; the seamlessly interwoven period research; and above all for the unfaltering power and authenticity of the narrative voice, a voice no reader is likely to forget."

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Author and military historian Peter Paret has won the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The award carries a $100,000 prize and will be officially presented to Paret on November 4 by Museum & Library founder and chair Jennifer N. Pritzker, a retired colonel in the Illinois National Guard, at the organization's annual gala.

Paret has written 14 major publications, among them Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times, Imagined Battles: Reflections of War in European Art, and An Artist Against the Third Reich: Ernst Barlach 1933-1938. He is Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study and a graduate of London University. The Pritzker Museum & Library called Paret's work "required reading for anyone interested in history, from amateur historians and active duty military officers seeking advanced degrees, or required for professional military education, to accomplished award winning authors."

He served in the U.S. Army in World War II in the Pacific Theatre and has received the Thomas Jefferson Medal of the American Philosophical Society as well as the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. He is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Leo Baeck Institute for German Jewish History and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

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