By Dorany Pineda
FROM: Los Angeles Times

The finalists for the 42nd Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced today, with Claire Vaye Watkins, Joy Williams, Michael Connelly and Martín Espada among the nominees for the annual literary awards.

Recipients in two special categories were also announced. The Innovator’s Award will go to Reginald Dwayne Betts, a poet, 2021 MacArthur fellow and founder of Freedom Reads; and the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement will be given to Chicano novelist, journalist and former L.A. Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. A winner was also announced in one additional category: The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose went to Deborah Levy for her memoir “Real Estate: A Living Autobiography.”

The rest of the winners will be announced at USC’s Bovard Auditorium on April 22, the day before the 27th Los Angeles Times Festival of Books kicks off its first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic. Winners in the special categories will also be celebrated that day.

Nominated books in the current interest category include “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City” by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Andrea Elliott; “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could” by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank); and “Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury” by National Book Award winner Evan Osnos, among others. Nominees in biography include books on Stephen Crane, Mike Nichols and Edgar Allan Poe. Read Rest of Article Here