Post Praises Ethan Canin's Latest

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles calls America America Ethan Canin's "best novel" in a June 29 Book World review. "America America isn't hawking any particular partisan agenda," Charles writes, "but like other great political novels, it's a story in which the audacity of hope confronts the tenacity of power — and loses." Naming the book "a worthy successor to Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men," the critic concludes that the novel "couldn't have arrived at a more auspicious moment than this season of potentially epochal political change." The complete review is accessible here. Don't miss your opportunity to meet Canin and hear him speak about the book on Wednesday evening, September 24, at George Mason University.

Stars of Stage and Screen Join Festival Line-Up

Bruce George, activist, author and co-founder of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and Alison Larkin, Anglo-American comedienne and author of the novel The English American, have recently signed on for the upcoming Fall for the Book Festival.


In addition to winning a Peabody Award for his work with Def Poetry Jam, Bruce George’s own writings have been published in magazines and journals including Essence, Emerge and Class Magazine, among others, and he co-edited the recently released book, The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates. He is one of the founders of an anti-violence/poverty initiative entitled “The American Experiment Peace Project,” seeking to uplift people in struggle.

Springing from her internationally acclaimed one woman show, in her bestselling novel The English American, writer/comedienne Alison Larkin draws further from her experiences as an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents — and a new homeland — in the United States (and weaves them into a work of fiction). Larkin trained as a classical actress and playwright in London before moving to America and becoming a stand-up comic. She has appeared on Broadway, at American's top comedy clubs, and on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Comic Relief and Providence. For more info visit www.alisonlarkin.net.

Michael Cunningham Named Fairfax Prize Winner

Novelist Michael Cunningham has been named the recipient of the 2008 Fairfax Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts. Cunningham is the author of four novels, including The Hours, which earned both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. The Fairfax Prize presentation and a talk by the author will close the 2008 Fall for the Book Festival on Friday evening, September 26.

“Michael Cunningham’s novels have earned both remarkable critical acclaim and a huge popular audience,” said William Miller, executive director of the festival. “The success of his books on these levels speaks to the heart of what our festival is about — building connections between great writers and the wide reading public. We’re honored to have Cunningham join us for our 10th annual year.”

Michael Cunningham’s most famous book, The Hours, was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and was adapted as a major motion picture, starring Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, with Kidman winning the Best Actress Oscar, and it was also nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, with wins in the categories for Best Motion Picture-Drama and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama.

Cunningham has written three additional novels — A Home at the End of the World, also adapted as a film; Flesh and Blood; and, most recently, Specimen Days— and one book of nonfiction, Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown. Cunningham also collaborated with Susan Minot on the screenplay for her novel Evening. In addition to his books, Cunningham’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review and other publications. His story “White Angel” was chosen for Best American Short Stories 1989, and another story, “Mister Brother,” appeared in the 2000 O. Henry Collection. He has received a Whiting Writers Award (1995), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1993), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1988) and a Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa (1982).

Since 2003, the Fairfax Prize has been awarded to writers with significant achievements in several of the following criteria: writing and publishing excellent works that contribute significantly to American or international culture; generously giving personal time and talents to the development of literature and literary endeavors; mentoring younger writers; and giving special service to the community of writers, such as editing anthologies or journals that give opportunities for publication to other writers. In 2007, the Fairfax County Public Library Foundation began sponsoring the Fairfax Prize, contributing the prize money and helping to select the recipient.

Ethan Canin Joins Festival Line-Up; National Public Radio Names America, America to Top Summer Reads

Acclaimed novelist Ethan Canin has recently signed on to join the 2008 Festival’s already distinguished roster of fiction writers, including Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Sue Miller and others. As Canin was added to the schedule, National Public Radio praised his new novel, America, America, in its list of recommended summer reading. The list said the new book proved Canin “one of the most accomplished fiction writers of his generation.”

In addition to America, America, Canin has authored five previous books of fiction, including the novels Blue River, For Kings and Planets, and Carry Me Across the Water; the collection of short stories, Emperor of the Air; and the collection of long stories, The Palace Thief, the title story of which was adapted into a 2002 motion picture, The Emperor’s Club.

Canin will read from his work on Wednesday evening, September 24, at George Mason University.

Jonny Steinberg Receives High Praise from Washington Post

Jonny Steinberg’s latest book, Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through Africa's AIDS Epidemic, earned a highly favorable review in the June 3 edition of The Washington Post, which noted that “nearly 30 years after the AIDS epidemic began, this provocative account offers something genuine, important and new.”

Steinberg will offer behind-the-scenes stories of Sizwe Magadla’s journey and talk about the African AIDS crisis as part of this year’s Fall for the Book Festival. His appearance is scheduled for Wednesday, September 24, at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus.

The Post review — accessible in its entirety here — stated that: “Ever since the epidemic shifted course, moving from hard-hit communities of gay men and IV drug users in the First World to the generalized pandemic spread mostly through heterosexual contact in sub-Saharan Africa, few writers have gotten very deeply under the skin of this still-unfolding catastrophe. Steinberg’s book is a significant contribution.”

Sizwe’s Test is Steinberg’s third book. Two previous books — Midlands and The Number — each won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Prize, the premier nonfiction literary award in Steinberg’s native South Africa.

Steinberg is one of several African writers appearing at this year’s festival. Others include Biyi Bandele, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Alain Mabanckou, and Chinua Achebe, who will receive the festival’s 2008 Mason Award. Complete details on these and other events will be posted on this web site soon.

Chinua Achebe To Receive Mason Award

Fall for the Book will present the 2008 Mason Award to Nigerian novelist, poet and critic Chinua Achebe. This year commemorates the 50th anniversary of Achebe’s phenomenally successful first novel, Things Fall Apart, which boasts more than eight million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 languages — making it the world’s most widely read African novel.

Fall for the Book’s annual Mason Award celebrates an author whose body of work has made extraordinary contributions to bringing literature to a wide reading public. Achebe will read from his work and accept the award on Monday, Sept. 22, the second day of the 2008 festival. Other events—readings and panel discussions—focusing on Achebe’s contribution to world literature and the importance of Things Fall Apart are planned.

New Look, New Logo Mark Festival’s 10th Year

In 1999, George Mason University and the City of Fairfax inaugurated a small literary event — a series of readings and discussions that kicked off Thursday night, Sept. 23, with celebrated poet Forrest Gander in the basement of the campus bookstore and continued at a handful of downtown venues through the weekend, ending Saturday night with novelist Elizabeth Berg.

From those humble beginnings, Fall for the Book, Northern Virginia’s oldest celebration of the literary arts, also grew to become its largest. Each fall, attendance surpasses that of the previous festival— topping 10,000 each of the last two years. Each fall, events are hosted in even more venues, spread more widely throughout Northern Virginia. Each fall, people of all ages flock to an even more diverse and dramatic schedule of writers, scholars, and performers from across the country and around the world. Dave Eggers, Nikki Giovanni, Pat Conroy, Khaled Hosseini, Cornell West, Mitch Albom, Tobias Woolf, Joyce Carol Oates, Doris Kearns Goodwin — over the years, audiences have laughed with, learned from, and been moved by these and hundreds of other outstanding authors, the “rock stars of writing.”

As Fall for the Book prepares for its 10th year, several changes are afoot: a new logo, for example, and a new look evidenced on the pages you’re reading now.

But in the midst of these transitions, one thing remains the same: Our commitment to bringing to you the finest writers on earth. The 2008 festival already boasts novelists Chinua Achebe, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, and Sue Miller; poets Jennifer Atkinson, Kyle Dargan, Eric Pankey, and C.K. Williams; and some of the leading names in creative nonfiction, beginning with journalist and memoirist Scott Huler. And there’s much more in store, So mark your calendars now for Fall for the Book, Volume 10 — our biggest and boldest edition ever.