Rudolfo Anaya to Receive LA Times Lifetime Achievement Award

32^nd Annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Finalists Announced

Ceremony to Be Held at USC’s Bovard Auditorium with Tickets Available to Public

LOS ANGELES – February 21, 2012 – The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes today announced its 2011 finalists for honors to be unveiled at a public ceremony the evening of April 20^th at the University of Southern California’s iconic Bovard Auditorium. The event is the preface to the 17^th-annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the nation’s largest public literary festival, to be held on USC’s campus in the heart of L.A.’s Downtown Arts & Education Corridor on April 21^st and 22^nd.

The Book Prizes recognize 50 distinguished works in 10 categories. The complete list of finalists in biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), graphic novel, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult literature can be found at www.latimes.com/bookprizes.

National Medal of Arts winner Rudolfo Anaya is the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. New Mexico-born Anaya’s award-winning 1972 debut novel “Bless Me, Ultima” is the most widely read and critically acclaimed novel in the Chicano literary canon. It was followed by the sequels “Heart of Aztlan” and “Tortuga,” and Anaya’s compendium of works include “Albuquerque,” the Sonny Baca quartet of detective novels and a number of books for children and young adults. Throughout his career Anaya also served as a professor in the University of New Mexico’s Department of English Language and Literature.

The Innovator’s Award, which spotlights cutting-edge business models, technology or applications of narrative art, will be presented to Figment. Co-founded and led by Jacob Lewis, Figment is a digital writing community with connections to – and roots in – traditional publishing, a space where young writers and readers are encouraged to share and comment on each other’s creativity. An early adaptor of the digital landscape as a publishing and literary territory, Figment is a site in constant evolution, developing and expanding to meet both the needs of its users and its own digital imperatives.

Tickets for the Book Prizes ceremony will be available for purchase at 10 a.m. Monday, March 26^th, and additional information will be posted to www.latimes.com/festivalofbooks. Finalists and winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are selected by judging panels composed of writers who specialize in each genre. Further information about the Book Prizes, including past winners, is available at www.latimes.com/bookprizes.