The Before Columbus Foundation, in partnership with C-SPAN, honors a select group of authors annually for “outstanding contributions to American literature.” This year, Athenian Humanities teacher Karla Brundage was asked to present the award to Rob Nixon for his Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Karla, an author herself, introduced Nixon: “Nixon has created a singular, remarkably rigorous and inventive style of literary criticism, illuminating the work of writer-activists both in America and around the world whose own powerfully decisive works are for highly original solutions and perspectives on the daunting, often intimidating, prospects of human extinction.”

View Karla’s presentation here or scroll to the right below to see the video.

2012 American Book Awards

from booktv.org

About the Program

The 33rd annual American Book Awards presented by the Before Columbus Foundation. This year’s winners are Annia Ciezadlo, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War, Arlene Kim, What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes?, Ed Bok Lee, Whorled, Adilifu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes, Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Shann Ray, American Masculine, Alice Rearden (translator) & Ann Fienup-Riordan (editor), Qaluyaarmiuni Nunamtenek Qanemciput: Our Nelson Island Stories, Toure, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now, Amy Waldman, The Submission, Mary Winegarden, The Translator’s Sister, and Kevin Young, Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels. A Lifetime Achievement Award is given to Eugene B. Redmond, poet and professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. This year’s American Book Awards were held at the University of California at Berkeley on October 7, 2012.