Kingsolver

Starting in the late 1980s in western Virginia, Kingsolver’s reimagining of “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens combines a rebuke of the modern foster care system with the devastating effects of the opioid epidemic.

Kingsolver’s empathetic portrait reminds us of the strength and resilience, and often defiance, of these communities.

Author Barbara Kingsolver won the award for distinguished contribution to American letters, which has previously been won by writers including Toni Morrison and Isabel Allende, while publisher W. Paul Coates — the father of author Ta-Nehisi Coates — won the 2024 Literarian Award, a lifetime achievement prize for outstanding service to the literary community.

I’m pleased to share the results of my spelunking: a can-do, women-run novel from Barbara Kingsolver and a deeply weird, overlooked British story that puts a baby’s existence into grotesquely brilliant prose.

Past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Barbara Kingsolver, who won last year for “Demon Copperhead.”