King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) has won the $50,000 New-York Historical Society's Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History.
The Society commented: "Vividly written and exhaustively researched, King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. Eig casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father--as well as the nation's most mourned martyr."
---
A longlist has been released for the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize. Judges Albert F. Moritz (Canada), Jan Wagner (Germany), and Anne Waldman (U.S.) each read 592 books of poetry, including 49 translations from 22 languages, submitted by 235 publishers from 14 countries.
The shortlist will be announced April 17 and a winner named June 5 at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings in Toronto. The winner receives C$130,000 (about US$96,115), while the other shortlisted authors each get C$10,000 (about US$7,395). Check out this year's longlisted titles here.