Harvardians Short-listed for 2013 National Book Awards

Professor Jill Lepore and three alumni are recognized.

Jill Lepore

University affiliates were named finalists in all four National Book Award categories today.

In nonfiction, Kemper professor of American history Jill Lepore was nominated for Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. A Bancroft Prize winner for The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, she is a Pulitzer Prize finalist as well, for New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan. Lepore is also coauthor of the historical novel, Blindspot: the adventures of a Scottish portrait painter who flees Edinburgh for Colonial Boston.

Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, G ’90, was nominated in the fiction category for The Lowland, also short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Bollingen Prize-winning poet Frank Bidart, A.M. ’67, was recognized for his new collection, Metaphysical Dog. A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Mellon professor of humanities at Wellesley, Bidart is a previous National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist.

London-based Meg Rosoff ’78, whose earlier novel How I Live Now won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the American Library Association’s Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, was nominated in the young people’s literature category for Picture Me Gone.

The National Book Awards are part of the National Book Foundation’s mission to celebrate the best of American literature, expand its audience, and enhance the cultural value of good writing in America. This year’s winners will be announced on November 20.

You might also like

A Paper House in Massachusetts

The 1920s Rockport cottage reflects resourceful ingenuity.

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Explore More From Current Issue

John Goldberg

Harvard in the News

University layoffs, professors in court, and a new Law School dean

Man splashing water on his face at outdoor fountain beside woman holding cup near stone building.

Why Heat Waves Make You Miserable

Scientists are studying how much heat and humidity the human body can take.

Johnston Gate

Your Views on Harvard’s Standoff, Antisemitism, and More

Readers comment on the controversial July-August cover, authoritarianism, and scientific research.