Bolano wins US book critics award

Late novelist Bolano won the top fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle awards.

New York, March 13: Late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano won the top fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle awards on Thursday for his last novel, "2666."

Bolano, who died at age 50 in 2003, won for the 2008 English-language translation of his 900-page work set in Mexico. It was first published in 2004. New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins won the nonfiction prize for "The Forever War," which recounts his experiences covering the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all, six winners were picked from books published in the United States in the past year. A 24-member board of the group determines the best books in each category. Founded in 1974, the National Book Critics Circle includes nearly 700 reviewers. The biography award went to Patrick French`s account of the life of British writer VS Naipaul, "The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of VS Naipaul." "My Father`s Paradise: A Son`s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq," by Ariel Sabar, was the top autobiography. August Kleinzahler`s "Sleeping it off in Rapid City" and Juan Felipe Herrera`s "Half of the World in Light" shared the poetry prize. Seth Lerer`s "Children Literature: A Reader`s History from Aesop to Harry Potter," was honored in the criticism category. Bureau Report