Local Authors Recognized for Outstanding Work

Berkeley writers, poets, and translators are among honorees in the 31st annual Northern California Book Awards Sunday.

Author, journalist, food activist and cultural critic Michael Pollan will receive the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and Community honoring exceptional literary merit.

Barry Eichengreen (Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System) and Adam Hochschild (To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918) will both receive honors for general nonfiction.

In total, Berkeley's literary community will be honored with seven awards. 

Other Berkeley writers receiving honors include:

• Edie Meidav, for fiction (Lola, California).

• Katherine Silver, for fiction translation (Tyrant Memory by Horacio Castellanos Moya)
• Andrea Lingenfelter for poetry translation (The Changing Room, by Zhai Yongming)
• Sandra M. Gilbert for creative nonfiction (Rereading Women: Thirty Years of Exploring Our Literary Traditions)

The Award Ceremony will kick off the event at San Francisco Library's grand Koret Auditorium. Starting at 1 p.m. Those attending are asked to enter from Grove side of the Civic Center at 100 Larkin Street.

From 1 to 2:30 p.m., winning authors will receive their distinctions, make remarks, and present selected readings from their respective works. Following the award ceremony, authors will proceed to sign books and mingle with fans from 2:30 to 4 p.m. The recetoption following the initial award ceremony will take place in the Latino/Hispanic Room.

Emceeing the event will be West Coast Live host Sedge Thompson.

This event is sponsored in part by a the Northern California Book Awards association and partnership with Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash, Center for the Art of Translation, Red Room (redroom.com), PEN West, Mechanics' Institute, San Francisco Public Library, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, and Readers Bookstore at the Main.

For information: Poetryflash.org, 510.525.5476, NCBR@poetryflash.org