[OPLINLIST] 2018 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winners Announced

[Gregor, Paul]

SALT HOUSES BY HALA ALYAN
AND WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER BY TA-NEHISI COATES

NAMED WINNERS OF 2018 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo named runners-up

Dayton, OH (September 17, 2018) - Salt Houses , Hala Alyan's debut novel about a displaced
Palestinian family, and We Were Eight Years in Power , Ta-Nehisi Coates's exploration of race and
identity through the lens of the Obama presidency, today were named the winners of the 2018
Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction and nonfiction, respectively.
Pachinko , Min Jin Lee's debut novel following four generations of a Korean-Japanese family, was
named runner-up for fiction, while Reading with Patrick , Michelle Kuo's memoir of mentoring a
teenager from one of the poorest counties in the U.S, was named the nonfiction runner-up.
Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, The Dayton Literary
Peace Prize is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. The Prize
celebrates the power of literature to promote peace, social justice, and global understanding. This
year's winners will be honored at a gala ceremony hosted by journalist and author Wil Haygood ( The
Butler and Showdown. a 2016 finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in nonfiction) in Dayton on
October 28th. Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $5,000.
"This year's winners and runners-up remind us just how much individual lives are shaped by broader
political circumstances - and how abruptly those circumstances can change," said Sharon Rab,
founder and co-chair of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. "From Alyan's portrait of
characters repeatedly displaced by an age-old conflict to Coates's incisive analysis of the modern
US presidency, these books help us view politics through both an emotional and an intellectual lens,
strengthening our empathy while sharpening our powers of political perception."

The 2018 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction:
Hala Alyan's heartbreaking debut novel, Salt Houses (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt), follows three
generations of a Palestinian family as they are uprooted by one military clash after another, giving up
their home, their land, and their story as they know it and scattering throughout the world. A lyrical
examination of displacement, belonging, and family, the book humanizes an age-old conflict,
illuminating the experiences of all refugees and challenging readers to confront that most
devastating of all truths: you can't go home again.
On receiving the prize, Alyan said: "One of my earliest memories is watching my father's face light
up as I chatted excitedly about the first book I read on my own. It's taken me years to truly
understand that moment-that, in that instant, my father witnessed my foray into the sacred world of
fiction, of perspective-taking and erasing borders, of understanding the complexity of others. He
watched me untangle from the confines of immigration, the Gulf War we'd just fled from, and the
ensuing otherness, and when I began to write my own stories, that sense of freedom magnified.
Writing has taught me to pay homage to my ancestors and envision the world after I am long gone; it
has empowered me to tell stories of oppression and restoration, to envision peace as something
tangible. I am my most human when I am writing, my most alert and engaged and compassionate.
To have my novel seen as a conduit for peace-building is remarkably humbling. Thank you for the
honor of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize."

Posted on behalf of Helen Prichard and the Library Committee of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

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