|
The 2010 PEN Open Book Awards went to:
Sherwin Bitsui for his book of poetry Flood Song
The judges wrote in their citation:
“Sherwin Bitsui is a modern-day trickster and his poems are like the most dazzling sorcery. He combines so much, many traditions, many landscapes, many visions, and covers so much time—mythological time, modern time, quantum time. To suggest that his work somehow transcends tribal Navajo culture is both an insult and misses the point: he is re-inventing his culture and American culture and the culture of literature with his rich second book, Flood Song. Sherwin Bitsui's work is promiscuous and embraces all, from Dine/Navajo medicine songs to the French surrealists; from coyote and cactus dotted canyons to a world of iron and steel and black tops and electricity. These poems are quiet, yet their thunder is loud. These poems are shape-shifters. These poems are alive.”
Robin D.G. Kelley for his biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
The judges wrote in their citation:
“Robin D.G. Kelley’s biography of Thelonious Monk is a major achievement, bringing together a decade’s worth of original research with a deeply felt understanding of a great American artist and his music. Kelley creates a nuanced portrait of not only a man but a family, a musical movement, a city, and a nation; he vividly illuminates the personal, social, and historical contexts out of which Monk’s work evolved. By exploding the familiar myth of Monk as an untutored, childlike eccentric, Kelley makes a passionate case for this artist’s complexity and brilliance, and for his place among the twentieth century’s most important innovators.”
Canyon Sam for her nonfiction book Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History
The judges wrote in their citation:
“Canyon Sam rides the Sky Train into the unknown, danger and the impossible—the unbridled occupation of Tibet: slaughters, burnings and gulags. Through Tibet, India, the USA and Switzerland, we follow Canyon Sam’s journey of rigorous searches, photographs and protracted interviews. We sense a personal urgency, we identify with the author’s own quandaries as she tracks the incredible survivals and transformations of the women; stories untold, such as the accounts of Mrs. Paljyorkhyimsar, exiled in Zurich, Mrs. Namseling, a former cabinet minister’s wife, and Sonam Choedron, jailed for being a member of the underground resistance movement. We come to learn a most precious thing: how to nourish freedom in the midst of brutality. Can we transcend such suffering and become borderless as the women and the call for a free Tibet that blaze out of these pages? This is the book we need at the cusp of the new decade—bravery, compassion and family are still possible. Bravo, bravissimo!”
|
