Prof. Wineapple's books gets Ambassador Award

Brenda Wineapple, Doris Zemurray Stone Professor of Modern Literary and Historical Studies, won the Ambassador Award for Best Biography of 2003 from the English-Speaking Union of the United States for her book, Hawthorne: A Life. The book was chosen by the Books-Across the Sea Committee for its "outstanding contribution to interpreting the life and culture of the U.S. to other English-speaking people." Copies of the book will be sent to ESU libraries throughout the world. Other winners were David Maraniss (They Marched into Sunlight) in American studies; Richard Powers (The Time of our Singing) for fiction, and Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, ed. Frank Bidart, for poetry. The chair of the Committee is novelist Maureen Howard, taking over for George Plimpton. The first chair was T. S. Eliot. Other members of committee include Eric Foner, Vartan Gregorian, and Rick Moody. The awards ceremony is Oct. 7 at the New York Public Library.