The ESU
Ambassador Book Awards (ABA) recognize important literary works that contribute to the understanding and interpretation of American life and culture. ABA winners become 'literary ambassadors' providing people around the world with an important window on America's past and present in the best contemporary English. Each year, a distinguished panel of judges, chaired by author Maureen Howard, reviews new works in the fields of fiction, biography, autobiography, current affairs, American studies and poetry and designate the most noteworthy to become Ambassador Book Award winners. Past winners have included books by such distinguished authors as John Updike, Annie Dillard, Doris Kearns Goodman and Tom Wolfe.
"If books become one's way of looking at and piecing together society and the world, then exchanging books might be an initiation into authentic membership in the world."
- Amy Hempel, speaking at the 2007 Ambassador Book Awards Ceremony.
The Ambassador Book Awards are the centerpiece of a family of programs that promote the written word. The program began in 1947 as an exchange with Britain under the Chairmanship or T.S. Eliot.
