That The Canning Season, a young-adult novel about a city girl from Pensacola, Fla., who must spend a summer with her 91-year-old twin aunts in rural Maine, won the prize was particularly meaningful because of the initial doubts about how the book might be received, Horvath said.
"It was a book that nobody knew how it was going to do," Horvath said yesterday during a phone interview. "There was a lot of talk, was it an adult's book, was it a kid's books? For me, it was really a vindication to get the award, because that really said, we don't care who it's for, it's a good book. So that was nice to hear."
Established in 1950 with the goal "to enhance the public's awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general," the awards are given annually by the National Book Foundation to the best books published in the United States by an American citizen, and have been won by every major writer including William Faulkner, Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates. Horvath, 46, was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., but has lived in Canada for the past 26 years and has landed immigrant status. She lives in Metchosin, B.C., with her husband and two daughters.
Her past books have won numerous praises: In 1999, her book The Trolls was nominated for a National Book Award; her last book, 2001's Everything on a Waffle, was a Newbery Honour Book.
Horvath was just one of four National Book Award winners honoured Wednesday night at a glitzy black-tie ceremony at Manhattan's Marriott Marquis Hotel with 900 people of the American publishing industry and 150 members of the media in attendance. Winners in the other categories include Shirley Hazzard for The Great Fire (fiction); Carlos Eire for Waiting for Snow in Havana (non-fiction); and C.K. Williams for Singing (poetry). Each winner receives $10,000 and a special bronze sculpture; each finalist receives $1,000.
The ceremony also included a special presentation of the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to popular thriller writer Stephen King, who has written more than 40 books including Carrie, The Shining, Misery and The Green Mile. It was a controversial moment: Although King received a standing ovation when he went to collect his award, apparently not everyone present felt he deserved the prize which had previously gone to writers such as Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison and Saul Bellow.
The 72-year-old Hazzard, for one, expressed her doubt. "I don't think giving us a reading list of those who are most read at this moment is much of a satisfaction," she told Associated Press, admitting she had never read one of his books.
In his speech, King addressed the literary community's reluctance to accept commercially successful writers as equals. He decried people who "make a point of pride in saying they have never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer."
"What do you think," he asked the crowd, "you get social academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?"
