The nine inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes have been announced by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The $150,000 prizes are awarded for outstanding achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama. The recipients will receive their awards at a ceremony in New Haven on September 10.
Among the nine inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes are three women.
Adina Hoffman is the author of House of Windows: Portraits From a Jerusalem Neighborhood and My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century, a biography of Taha Muhammad Ali. A graduate of Wesleyan University, she has served as a visiting professor at Middlebury College, New York University, Yale University, and Wesleyan University.
Naomi Wallace is a playwright from Kentucky. Among her plays are “In the Heart of America,” “Slaughter City,” and “One Flea Spare.” She has also written several screenplays. Wallace is a former MacArthur Fellow. A graduate of Hampshire College, Wallace holds two master’s degrees from the University of Iowa.
Zoe Wicomb is a South African writer who lives in Glasgow, Scotland, where she teaches at the University of Strathclyde. Wicomb is a graduate of the University of Western Cape. Among her novels are You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, David’s Story, Playing in the Light, and The One That Got Away.