Literary Arts Program Director Forrest Gander has won an unrestricted $50,000 fellowship award for his poetry and fiction from United States Artists, an artist-advocacy group, the organization announced Nov. 10.
Gander, professor of English and comparative literature, became one of this year's 362 nominees when his name was anonymously suggested by a prominent figure in the field of literature, he said. A panel of experts then selected him for one of 50 fellowships. At the awards gala at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art last Monday, he was one of only eight artists to give a special presentation of his work.
United States Artists has given 50 awards annually for the past three years to artists across the country to honor their "artistic excellence, unique artistic vision, and significant contributions to their field," according to the group's Web site.
"In just three years, USA has introduced a solution to the lack of funding for artists and awarded $7.5 million across all disciplines," its executive director, Katharine DeShaw, said in a statement.
The organization awards artists in eight categories: architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, media, music, theater arts and visual arts. Gander was one of nine winners in the literature category and the only winner in Rhode Island.
"This is a well-deserved honor for Professor Gander," Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P'07 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "While it is about personal accomplishment, it also reflects in some ways on the strength of the community of scholars at Brown that supports and nurtures creativity."
Gander has written 10 books of poetry and translated five from Spanish. He published his first novel, "As a Friend," in October.. Gander said he believed the award was "mostly for poetry," although he also submitted a section of his new novel for review by the panel.
He said that with the $50,000 award, in addition to a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he won in April, he will be able to take off the spring and fall semesters next year to write. He plans to work on a book of poetry, a work of fiction and translations of two poets, one from Spanish and the other from Japanese.
Gander will return to Brown in the spring of 2010.
