Poets & Writers Theater

“I became a writer not because I was seeking community but rather because I thought it would be something I could do alone and hidden in the privacy of my own room,” says Sigrid Nunez in her acceptance speech for the 2018 National Book Award in fiction, which she won for her seventh novel, The Friend (Riverhead Books, 2018). “How lucky to have discovered that writing books made the miraculous possible: to be removed from the world and to be a part of the world at the same time.”

In this video, V. S. Naipaul accepts the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature and reads his speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm. Described by the Swedish Academy as “a literary circumnavigator,” the prolific author published more than a dozen novels and several nonfiction books. Naipaul died at the age of eighty-five on August 11, 2018.

“We will need writers who can remember freedom.” In this video, Ursula K. Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin’s essay collection, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Like literature, my own field, the Nobel Prize is an idea that, in times like these, helps us to think beyond our dividing walls...” In this video, Kazuo Ishiguro delivers a heartfelt speech to accept the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm.

“We keep on trying because there’s nothing else to do.” With a timely speech, Annie Proulx accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2017 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which recognizes individuals who have made an exceptional impact on the country’s literary heritage.

“This tonight is culture, it’s international culture, it’s compassionate culture, it’s activist culture—it’s a room full of believers…” In this video, George Saunders accepts the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury, 2017). Saunders is the second American in a row to win the award.

In this video, MacDowell Colony chairman Michael Chabon presents Toni Morrison with the Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contribution to the arts and American culture. Morrison, who received a lifetime achievement award from the PEN American Center, tells a packed audience about how she became a writer and the inspiration for her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

“Often my subjects are the simplest things in the world: joy, family, the weather, houses, streets—nothing fancy. And when I sit down with these subjects, my aim is clarity...” In her acceptance speech for the 2014 Moth Award, Zadie Smith shares her perspective on storytelling and how it has changed over the years. Smith’s fifth novel, Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer.” While accepting the Tony for best score for Hamilton on Sunday night, playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda opted to read a sonnet for his wife, addressing the tragic shooting in Orlando and showing the power of poetry and words in times of tragedy.

The visionary cofounder of Apple died of complications from pancreatic cancer yesterday at the age of fifty-six. Here are some choice cuts from his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005, presented in the form of a poem.