The Los Angeles Times unveiled the finalists for its book prizes, and named crime fiction author James Ellroy the winner of the annual Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement.
The newspaper praised Ellroy, known for novels including L.A. Confidential and American Tabloid, as a “L.A. noir iconoclast.” He joins a long list of writers to receive the award, including Christopher Isherwood, Ken Kesey, and Joan Didion.
Jamil Jan Kochai was named a finalist for the Times fiction prize for The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, along with Anna Dorn for Exalted and James Hannaham for Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened To Carlotta. Two translated books also made the shortlist: Solenoid, written by Mircea Cartarescu and translated by Sean Cotter, and Paradais, written by Fernanda Melchor and translated by Sophie Hughes.
In the mystery/thriller category, the finalists were Rachel Howzell Hall for We Lie Here, Laurie R. King for Back to the Garden, Tracey Lien for All That’s Left Unsaid, Alex Segura for Secret Identity, and Peng Shepherd for Cartographers.
Sabaa Tahir’s National Book Award–winning All My Rage made the shortlist for the young adult literature prize, as did Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s Torch, Samira Ahmed’s Hollow Fires, Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us, and Kip Wilson’s The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin.
The winners of the awards will be announced at a ceremony on April 21 at the University of Southern California. A complete list of the finalists is available at the Times website.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
