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The English-Speaking Union of the United States' The 2008 Ambassador Book Awards ceremony was held on September 24, 2008 at the ESU's National Headquarters in NYC. In addition to honoring this year's winning authors, the ESU was pleased to present John Ashbery with a lifetime achievement award 2008 Winners: American Studies: Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics; Rebecca Solnit (University of California Press) Autobiography: Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties;Robert Stone (HarperCollins Publishers) Biography Edith Wharton; Hermione Lee (Alfred A. Knopf) Fiction: The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Mohsin Hamid (Harcourt, Inc.) Poetry: Blackbird and Wolf; Henri Cole (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: John Ashbery Photo caption, left to right: Author Robert Stone holding Autobiography winning book Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties Author Henri Cole holding Poetry winning book Blackbird and Wolf (book is hidden from view) Accepting the award for author Mohsin Hamid, his editor, Rebecca Saletan, (Publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), holding Fiction winning book The Reluctant Fundamentalist Author John Ashbery holding Award for Lifetime Achievement book Notes from the Air (book is partially hidden) Maureen Howard, Chairman, Ambassador Book Awards Committee William R. Miller OBE, Chairman, The English-Speaking Union of the United States Accepting the award for author Hermione Lee, her U.S. literary agent, Zoë Pagnamenta holding Biography winning book Edith Wharton Accepting the award for author Rebecca Solnit, novelist Paul LaFarge holding Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics   The 2008 Ambassador Book Awards Committee   Ambassador Book Awards Overview RETURN TO RECENT EVENTS PAGE