John Banville won the Franz Kafka prize, given by the Kafka Society to an international author whose work is "exceptional for its artistic quality" and "addresses readers regardless of their origin, nationality or culture, just like the work of Franz Kafka."
Banville said he was "proud and pleased and honored" by the news, according to the Guardian, which called the Kafka Prize "a literary award with an uncanny ability of predicting future Nobel laureates." It has been won by Elfriede Jelinek and Harold Pinter.
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Pauline Maier's Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 won the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize, which "honors what judges deem the year's best book about America's founding era," the Associated Press (via the Washington Post) reported.