National Book Award Winners Announced

The winners of the 2008 National Book Awards were announced November 19 at the National Book Foundation's 59th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York City. T

he night's ceremonies included the presentation of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Maxine Hong Kingston and the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community to publisher Barney Rosset.


This year's National Book Award winners are:

Fiction
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)

Nonfiction
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Norton)

Poetry
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)

Young People's Literature
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)