Awards

Anna Bowman Blake Dodd, a writer of travel essays and French history, left the Academy the residue of her estate when she died in Paris in 1929. Because of the Depression, the fund languished for many years. It now supports the triennial Blake-Dodd Prize of $25,000 for a nonfiction writer.

This $5000 triennial award was established by Mrs. Lillian Braude in memory of her husband, the businessman and writer of humorous verse Michael Braude (1910-1986). The award is given for light verse written in English regardless of the writer’s country of origin.

Foreign Honorary Member E. M. Forster (1879-1970) bequeathed the American publication rights and royalties of his posthumous novel Maurice to Academician Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), who transferred them to the Academy for the establishment of an award of $20,000 to be given to a young English writer toward a stay in the United States.

Named after Academy member Williams Dean Howells (1837-1920), the medal is given once every five years in recognition of the most distinguished American novel published during that period. The first winner of the Howells Medal was Mary E. Wilkins Freeman in 1925, followed by Willa Cather in 1930, and Pearl S. Buck in 1935. Other recipients include William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, E. L. Doctorow, John Updike, Don DeLillo, and Shirley Hazzard.

The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction of $5000 is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories of the preceding year. The prize was established in 1979 in memory of the writer Sue Kaufman.

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who was elected to the Institute in 1941 and to the Academy in 1966. In 2001 the trustees of the Porter estate endowed this biennial award of $20,000 to honor a prose writer whose achievements and dedication to the literary profession have been demonstrated.

In 1998 Paige Rense established an award of $20,000 in memory of her husband, the poet Arthur Rense. The prize is given triennially to an exceptional poet.

A bequest from Mildred and Harold Strauss in 1981 established two Strauss Living Funds that provide two writers of English prose literature an annual stipend to enable them to devote their time exclusively to writing. It is now $100,000 a year for a period of two years.

This biennial award of $20,000 recognizes a writer in mid-career who has demonstrated consistent excellence. The award was established by Martha Updike in memory of her husband, the writer John Updike (1932-2009).

This award of $20,000 is given annually to single out recent prose that merits recognition for the quality of its style. Franklin H. Kissner endowed the award in honor of the former vice-president and managing editor of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

The E. B. White Award of $10,000, inaugurated in 2013, is given to a writer for achievement in children’s literature.

The Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation of $20,000 recognizes a practitioner, scholar, or patron who has made a significant contribution to the art of literary translation. The prize was established by Tappan Wilder and Catharine Wilder Guiles, the nephew and niece of Academy member Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), and given for the first time in 2009.

This $10,000 biennial award was established by a bequest from Morton Dauwen Zabel. It is given in rotation to a poet, writer of fiction, or critic, of progressive, original, and experimental tendencies.