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- The National Book Foundation, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announced the inaugural winners of Science + Literature awards on Wednesday.
- The Science + Literature awards is set to recognize three books annually for works that “deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology with a focus on work that highlights the diversity of voices in scientific writing.”
- Each winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize.
The National Book Foundation, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announced the inaugural winners of Science + Literature awards on Wednesday.
The Science + Literature awards is set to recognize three books annually for works that “deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology.”
The three inaugural winners, all of which were written by women, are “The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease” by Daisy Hernández, “The Radiant Lives of Animals” by Linda Hogan and “In the Field” by Rachel Pastan. Each winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize.
“We are proud to partner with the National Book Foundation to honor three exceptional women writers whose works dramatize scientific and technological themes and characters,” Doron Weber, vice president and program director for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, said in a press release.
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The award-winning pieces vary in genre: One is a memoir, one is a collection of essays and poetry and one is a nonfiction novel.
Driven to learn more about the disease that killed her aunt, Hernández hosts a range of interviews with doctors and patients in her memoir, examining the deadly infectious disease known as Chagas, which is known to “disproportionately affect low-income Latinx communities.”
Meanwhile, Hogan, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, examines her relationship with wildlife and the environment, as well as its relationship with humans, through her poetry and essays, suggesting a more sustainable relationship with the environment could be “led by Indigenous understandings.”
In Pastan’s work, she recounts the life and works of Nobel Prize-winning cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock, examining not only her scientific findings but her sexuality and discrimination she faced as a woman in the scientific field.
“These three titles contemplate gaps in the US healthcare system, humans’ relationships to the natural world, and the legacy of a scientist ahead of her time,” said Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation. “We are thrilled to celebrate these diverse perspectives, and inspire conversations around the role of science and technology in our everyday lives.”
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Published on Feb 09,2022