Novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet Fanny Howe has been awarded one of the nation’s largest literary prizes, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Life Achievement, the Poetry Foundation announced yesterday. The $100,000 prize will be presented to Howe at an awards ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on May 19.
Howe, a professor emerita of writing and literature at the University of California San Diego is renowned for her experimental writing. She has written 21 books of poetry; her most recent poetry title, The Lyrics, was published by Graywolf Press in 2007. Howe has also written 13 fiction titles, and two collections of essays. Graywolf has just released her memoir, The Winter Sun. Besides this most recent honor, Howe was the recipient of the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters.
The Lilly Prize, established in 1986, is presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet of extraordinary achievement. A total of more than $1 million has already has been awarded to 23 poets, including Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Donald Hall, John Ashbery, and Richard Wilbur.
