Thursday, November 16, 2006

Post mentions American Born Chinese at National Book Awards

National Book Awards Honor 'Echo Maker,' 'Worst Hard Time' By Bob Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page C01 has a little bit on Gene Yang's nomination. To wit:

In his acceptance speech, [Young people's literature award winner M.T.] Anderson made a point of noting that Gene Luen Yang's "American Born Chinese" was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award. "There is a lot of dithering in the blogosphere," he said, about whether graphic novels are worthy. This can now be laid to rest.

and

Yang said he thinks we're "in the middle of a renaissance for the graphic novel" -- finally seeing "an entire body of work" in the form that aspires to be literature.

Nothing world-shaking, but perhaps of interest.

In other news, as I was driving home tonight I was behind a silver Pacifica SUV with a license plate that read "DC Comic" - it was driven by a black man in a military uniform, and judging from the frequency of shows advertised at Walter Reed, I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's a comedian. I was excited for a minute though.

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