The National Book Foundation will present its 2012 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Elmore Leonard, and its 2012 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community to Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.
The awards will be given at the National Book Awards ceremony on November 14 in New York. Martin Amis will present the medal to Leonard, who is the twenty-fifth winner of the award that has previously gone to John Ashbery, Toni Morrison, John Updike, and Joan Didion. Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the New York Times, is the eighth recipient of the Literarian award, which went to Mitchell Kaplan last year and has previously honored Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Barbara Epstein.
