Bob Shacochs (Eastern Carbbean 1975-76) Wins Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize honors writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding. Launched in 2006, it has already established itself as one of the world’s most prestigious literary honors, and is the only literary peace prize awarded in the United States. As an offshoot of the Dayton Peace Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize awards a $10,000 cash prize each year to one fiction and one nonfiction author whose work advances peace as a solution to conflict, and leads readers to a better understanding of other cultures, peoples, religions, and political points of view. Additionally, the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award is bestowed upon a writer whose body of work reflects the Prize’s mission; previous honorees include Wendell Berry, Taylor Branch, Geraldine Brooks, Barbara Kingsolver, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Tim O’Brien, Studs Terkel, and Elie Wiesel.

“The Woman Who Lost Her Soul,” an epic about America’s unbridled military ambitions, has won this year’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction. In their announcement of the $10,000 award this morning, the judges said that novelist Bob Shacochis “creates an intricate portrait of the catastrophic events that have led to an endless cycle of vengeance and war between cultures.”

Here is a video of Bob’s acceptance speech at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize awards

http://www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/2014_files/videos/Bob_Shacochis.htm