Vietnam War Novel Wins National Book Award
“Tree of Smoke,” a sweeping novel by Denis Johnson about the Vietnam War that features intersecting stories of an array of American and Vietnamese soldiers and intelligence officers, won the National Book Award for fiction last night.
Mr. Johnson, who had been widely favored to take the prize for the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, was on assignment in Iraq. His wife, Cindy Lee Johnson, accepted the award. She read from a speech Mr. Johnson had prepared, in which he said he was “very sorry to miss this one chance to dress up in a tuxedo in front of so many representatives of the world of literature and say thank you.”
In the nonfiction category, Tim Weiner, a reporter at The New York Times, took the prize for “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the C.I.A.” (Doubleday).
Mr. Weiner, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on national security programs, examined more than 50,000 documents and interviewed hundreds of C.I.A. veterans for his book, a critical history of C.I.A. failures.
Accepting the award, Mr. Weiner said his work was “a testament to the power of the record revealed and maybe to the fact that our democracy, in spite of everything, is still open enough to see a glimpse of what we have wrought abroad.”
Read entire article at NYT
Mr. Johnson, who had been widely favored to take the prize for the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, was on assignment in Iraq. His wife, Cindy Lee Johnson, accepted the award. She read from a speech Mr. Johnson had prepared, in which he said he was “very sorry to miss this one chance to dress up in a tuxedo in front of so many representatives of the world of literature and say thank you.”
In the nonfiction category, Tim Weiner, a reporter at The New York Times, took the prize for “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the C.I.A.” (Doubleday).
Mr. Weiner, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on national security programs, examined more than 50,000 documents and interviewed hundreds of C.I.A. veterans for his book, a critical history of C.I.A. failures.
Accepting the award, Mr. Weiner said his work was “a testament to the power of the record revealed and maybe to the fact that our democracy, in spite of everything, is still open enough to see a glimpse of what we have wrought abroad.”