Coming Events

Support Us

Sean Wilentz

Annette Grant

Maureen Howard

Richard Howard is a distinguished poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher and translator. He is the author of fifteen books of poetry, including Untitled Subjects which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970. He is the author of two books of criticism, Alone With America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States Since 1950 (1969) and Paper Trail: Selected Prose 1965-2003 (2004). He reviews regularly for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and many literary magazines. He served as poetry editor for several periodicals including the New Republic and The Paris Review and is current poetry editor for Western Humanities Review. In 1983, he received the American Book Award for his translation of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. He has also been awarded the PEN Translation Medal and the first French-American Translation Prize and was designated a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite by the French government. A member of the American Academy of Arts and letters, he served as Poet Laureate of New York State and President of PEN American Center. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2007.

Victor LaValle

Ed Park

Benjamin Taylor

May 2009

A special note: the ESU would like to recognize the late George Plimpton for his service and contributions to the Ambassador Book Awards Committee, where he served six years as its Chairman.

Ambassador Book Awards Main Page