Anne Tyler Wins Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence
American novelist Anne Tyler has been announced as the winner of the 2012 Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence, joining the ranks of literary luminaries including Margaret Atwood and Muriel Spark.
Anne Tyler said she was ‘surprised and delighted’ at the news of the award, saying:
“I know what a great honour it is, and what good company I’m keeping; the list of those who have received it before me is dazzling.”
Awarded as an acknowledgement of a lifetime’s contribution to literature, the prize will be awarded to the author by Sunday Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate at the Oxford Literary Festival in April.
It will be the first official visit to the UK for the notoriously reclusive Anne Tyler, who rarely makes public appearances or grants face-to-face interviews. Andrew Holgate said:
“Readers the world over treasure Anne Tyler for the profound way she seems to peer into their hearts, and we are thrilled that she has chosen to visit the UK for the first time to accept the award.”
Anne Tyler’s numerous novels include Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons, which received the Pultizer Prize for Fiction in 1989.
Jane Bradley
