Anne Enright, Robert K. Massie Win First Andrew Carnegie Medals

Posted on June 26, 2012

The American Library Association (ALA) has announced the first recipients of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The awards were funded through a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz received the medal for fiction and Robert K. Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman received the nonfiction prize.

Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz (W. W. Norton & Company) received the medal for fiction. The ALA says, "The vicissitudes of extramarital love and the obstructions to its smooth flow - including spouses, children, and the necessary secrecy surrounding an affair - are charted in sharp yet supple prose."

Robert K. Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Random House) won the medal for nonfiction. The biography tells the story of the fascinating woman who rose from her birth as a minor German princess to become the Empress of all the Russias.

The medals recognize the best in fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published the previous year in the United States. The medals are made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and are co-sponsored by ALA's Booklist magazine and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). Enright and Massie each receives a medal and $5,000, and each finalist receives $1,500. You can find out more about the awards here.

Images: Random House/W. W. Norton & Company