David L. Goodis Award - Fuminori Nakamura
Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. In 2002, he won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize for New Writers for his first novel, A Gun, and in 2005 he won the Akutagawa prize for The Boy in the Earth. The Thief, winner of the 2010 Oe Prize, Japan’s most important literary award, is his first novel to be published in English.
Don't you think people make their own choices in life? They do, but in many cases their choices are limited--unless they break the rules.
The Thief, winner of the 2010 Oe Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award, was his first book to be published in English. It has been named a Wall Street Journal Best Fiction Selection, a World Today Notable Translation and most recently, a finalist for the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His next novel, Evil and the Mask, will be published by Soho Press in June.
Jay & Deen Kogan Award - Bronwen Hruska
Before becoming publisher of Soho Press, Bronwen Hruska worked as a journalist and screenwriter for twenty years. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, More Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, the Village Voice, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.
The book is intended to be an exploration of how hard it is for a parent to do the right thing for their child.
She’s sold an original screenplay and original television pilots, even though, alas, none of them were ever produced. She lives in Manhattan with her two sons, and is completely thrilled that Accelerated, her first novel, will see the light of day.
Anne Friedberg Award - Eddie Muller
Eddie Muller is an American writer based in San Francisco. He is known for writing books about movies, particularly film noir, and is the host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).
His career as an ink-stained fourth estate wretch sidetracked Muller's early goal of becoming a filmmaker.
Muller is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation and is co-programmer of the San Francisco Noir City film festival. Muller is considered a noir expert and is called on to write and talk about the film genre, notably on wry commentary tracks for Fox’s film noir series of DVDs and introducing Turner Classic Movies’s weekly “Noir Alley” movie block. Every Saturday, Noir Alley visits classic noir films featuring some of the best set-ups and shake downs involving iconic antiheroes and the unforgettable, fatalistic dames they fall for.
Laura Sheppard, director of events at Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco, dubbed him “The Czar of Noir” (as recounted by Muller in conversation with Angie Coiro on the In Deep radio show recorded March 20, 2019, at Dragon Theater in Redwood City, California;) the quote is often misattributed to the novelist James Ellroy[citation needed].
Muller based the character of Billy Nichols in his period crime novel The Distance after his father. The novel was named the Best First Novel of 2002 by the Private Eye Writers of America. Billy Nichols returned in the 2003 novel Shadow Boxer.
