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2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize winners named

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Staff Reports Updated 10:38 PM Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The work of a first-time author was among the two books that received top honors today, Sept. 22, as winners of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Benjamin Skinner was awarded the top nonfiction award for his debut work, “A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery.”

Richard Bausch, a professor at the University of Memphis, earned the fiction equivalent with his novel, “Peace.”

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize, founded in 2006, is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. It was an outgrowth of the Dayton Peace Prize, which commemorates the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

The prize honors writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.

The 2009 runners-up were “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” by Thomas Friedman, for nonfiction, and “Say You’re One of Them,” by Uwem Akpan, for fiction.

The committee previously announced that authors and journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, “Half the Sky, China Wakes,” will receive the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $1,000, and will be honored at a ceremony hosted by award-winning journalist Nick Clooney on Nov. 8 at the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in downtown Dayton.

For tickets to the event, which will be hosted by longtime Cincinnati television newsman Nick Clooney, visit www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org.

Skinner, a Boston resident who was raised in Wisconsin, is a reporter whose book centers on the horrors of contemporary slavery and the need to make its demise a global priority.

He is reportedly donating his $10,000 honorarium to Free The Slaves, the American wing of Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organization.

Bausch’s novel is set among American soldiers in Italy during World War II, and deals with the corrosiveness of violence, the human cost of war and the redemptive power of mercy.

Sharon Rab, chairperson of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, said each of this year’s winners sheds new light on the devastating impact of war and violence, while inspiring readers to work toward peace and advance human rights.

“It’s especially noteworthy that three of the books honored this year — ‘Half the Sky,’ ‘A Crime So Monstrous,’ and ‘Say You’re One of Them’ — put a much-needed spotlight on the tragedy of contemporary slavery, an issue that has been ignored for far too long.”

According to the committee, to be eligible for the 2009 awards, English-language books must have been published and translated into English in 2008 and address the theme of peace on a variety of levels, such as between individuals, among families and communities, or among nations, religions, or ethnic groups.

Winners and runners-up were selected by a panel of prominent writers including Gerald Early, Cullen Murphy, Gordon Lish and Katherine Vaz.

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Richard Bausch, winner of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, should scarcely be described as "a professor at The University of Memphis." Bausch is the author of 18 books and is often described as "one of the best short story writers alive."

Tara
12:20 PM, 9/22/2009

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