Renowned Literary Award Holbrooke Ohio

CINCINNATI (AP) - An award celebrates the power of literature to promote peace was renamed in honor of the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and author Barbara Kingsolver is the recipient of this year.

The decision Lifetime Achievement Dayton literary prize was first awarded in 2006. It was inspired by the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia in 1995 Holbrooke negotiated the talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near the city in southwestern Ohio.

Founder Sharon Rab says the organization wanted to honor the role of the International Award of Holbrooke's search for peace, and his particular importance in Dayton. In the long-term U.S. diplomat was killed last December at the age of 69 after surgery on his torn aorta.

Kingsolver will receive the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award in Dayton on November 13. It carries a prize of $ 10,000, the price of peace of the group is supported by a combination of businesses, schools, arts advocacy groups, and private donors.

"I like that the organization is to respect this type of literature to create a higher value of empathy," Kingsolver told the Associated Press. "Throughout the novel we experience another person's life ... to create empathy for the stranger theory to cultivate peace. You can not bang your head no and stick to make peace, just need to do to convince people that the life of a stranger is in force and is responsible for his own, this is what literature is. "

Kingsolver said she was "surprised and delighted" to join the previous winners, there is "a partial list of my heroes." They include Nobel Peace Elie Wiesel, the late Chicago-based author Studs Terkel, and Taylor Branch, who recounted the struggle for civil rights.

Its award-winning novels include "The Poison Wood Bible," about an American family being post-colonial Africa, and the "gap," a young Mexican-American man in the 20th century era of political radicalism, the world, War and fear of communism. She also wrote fiction, essays and poems on subjects from September 11 to growing your own food.

Ohio Governor Bob Taft's former chaired the selection committee and said, Kingsolver reflects the work of Richard Holbrooke to create peace and understanding.

"It leaves the reader with a sense of urgency on the subject, she cares about most: the complex nature of what it takes to live together peacefully and creatively," Taft said in a statement.

The widow of Richard Holbrooke, author and journalist Kati Marton, called the price of a special tribute to him.

She said Tuesday he was happy with the winner, whose writing said reflects his belief in "humanism and the perfectibility of mankind. There is a profound optimism in his work, which is absolutely correct. To his last breath, he was an optimist . He does not believe that war was inevitable. "

It plans to personally give the award to Kingsolver. The winners of the organization's annual fiction and fiction awards will be named later.

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