By Dorany Pineda
FROM: L.A. Times

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced on Twitter today. Among the winners in 14 categories, who submitted acceptance speech videos, were Steph Cha, Ben Lerner, Namwalli Serpell, George Packer, Maria Popova and Walter Mosley. Marlon James won the inaugural Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction.

For the first time since launching in 1980, the prizes — which traditionally kick off the The Times’ weekend-long Festival of Books — were awarded without a physical ceremony due to social-distancing restrictions under the coronavirus crisis.

In videos released Friday and shared on Twitter, the winners were uniformly grateful, but most of them were preoccupied with COVID-19 and its effect on humanity. Their books, their lives and the prizes themselves took on new meaning as the authors did what their books often do, attempting to make sense out of chaos and struggle.

“A mere few decades ago, this pandemic and the logical response to it would’ve been the subject of fiction,” said crime novelist Walter Mosley, winner of the 2019 Robert Kirsch Award for his contributions to the literature of the American West. “Today, the fiction writer has become part of his craft, the subject of his craft,” he said from “quasi-quarantine” in Santa Monica. Read Rest of Article Here