The Eleanor Roosevelt Center announced the honorees of its Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature, with Margaret Atwood set to receive its lifetime achievement award.
The awards, presented jointly with the literary nonprofit PEN America, recognize “authors whose works advance human rights amid a surge in book bans and censorship.”
Atwood, who will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award, is the author of the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, one of the most banned books in the country. Her novel Oryx and Crake is one of 18 books banned from all public schools in Utah.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Literary Freedom Award will go to Becky Calzada, the library coordinator for the school district in Leander, Texas, and an anti-censorship activist.
Other honorees include Malinda Lo (Last Night at the Telegraph Club); Juno Dawson (This Book Is Gay); John Green (Looking for Alaska); Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell (And Tango Makes Three); and Matthew A. Cherry and Vashti Harrison (Hair Love).
This is the second year for the Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature. The winner of last year’s lifetime achievement award was Judy Blume; other honorees included Maia Kobabe, George M. Johnson, and Laurie Halse Anderson.
This year’s awards will be presented at a ceremony in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Oct. 11.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
