The American
Library Association on Sunday announced the winners of the
2006 Stonewall Book Awards. Each year the ALA bestows one
award for literature and one for nonfiction to
"English-language books of exceptional merit
relating to the [LGBT] experience."
The Barbara
Gittings Book Award in Literature went to Abha Dawesar,
author of Babyji
(Anchor Books), a
coming-of-age tale about a free-spirited lesbian
teenager in New Delhi; and the Israel Fishman Book
Award for Nonfiction went to Joshua Gamson, author of
The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the
'70s in San Francisco
(Henry Holt and Co.), a
look at the life of disco singer Sylvester James.
The awards will be presented at the 2006 ALA
Annual Conference in New Orleans in June.
Other honorees in
the literature category include Acqua Calda
by Keith McDermott
(Carroll & Graf),
The First Verse
by Barry McCrea (Carroll
& Graf),
Mother of Sorrows
by Richard McCann
(Pantheon), and
The Wild Creatures: Collected Stories of Sam D'Allesandro
, edited by Kevin Killian
(Suspect Thoughts).
In the nonfiction
category, honorees include My One-night Stand With Cancer
by Tania Katan (Alyson),
Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual
Metropolis, 1918-1957
by Matt Houlbrook
(University of Chicago),
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
by Neil McKenna
(Basic Books), and
The Tragedy of Today's Gays
by Larry Kramer (Tarcher/Penguin).
Since 1971, when
Isabel Miller's Patience and Sarah
received the first
award, a total of 48 books have been recognized,
according to an ALA statement. (Advocate.com)
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