Pulitzer-winning author wins $20K Story Prize

Steven Millhauser takes honour for We Others

CBC News

Posted: Mar 22, 2012 1:33 PM ET

Last Updated: Mar 22, 2012 1:32 PM ET

The Story Prize celebrates works of short fiction. (iStock)

Pulitzer-Prize winning author Steven Millhauser is the Story Prize winner for books published in 2011, organizers announced Wednesday in New York.

The prize for short fiction comes with $20,000 US, the largest cash amount of any annual U.S. book award for fiction, according to the Story Prize website. The award was founded in 2004 by Julie Lindsey, and is underwritten by the Chisholm Foundation.

The winning work, We Others, is a collection of seven new stories and 14 previously published pieces.

Millhauser is already a celebrated author: he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his book Martin Dressler: The Life and Times of an American Dreamer. The film The Illusionist (2006), starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel, is based on Millhauser’s story, Eisenheim the Illusionist. He also teaches at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

The other two finalists for the prize were Don DeLillo for The Angel Esmeralda and Edith Pearlman for Binocular Vision. They will each receive $5,000.

The winning work was selected from among 92 books that were entered by authors, publishers and agents. Only books by living authors that were first published in English in the United States in the contest year are eligible; e-book only publications are not.

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