PEN Center West Names Winners of ’89 Awards

PEN Center USA West has announced winners of 13 Literary Awards for work published or produced in 1989 and a special commendation for the Los Angeles Times for publishing the work of media reporter David Shaw, the PEN award winner in journalism.

The western PEN Center, an affiliate of the international writers organization, honors writers living west of the Mississippi and screenwriters living in the United States.

Wallace Stegner (Random House) was chosen to receive the organization’s award for a body of work. In fiction the honorees are Maxine Hong Kingston for the novel “Trip Master Monkey” (Alfred A. Knopf) and, for the short story, T. Coraghessan Boyle for “If the River Was Whiskey” (Penguin/Viking). Nonfiction winners are Le Ly Hayslip and Jay Wurts for “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places” (Doubleday).

The award for original screenplay will go to Woody Allen for “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (Orion Pictures). Winners for screenplay adaptation are Gus Van Sant and Daniel Yost for “Drugstore Cowboy” (Avenue Pictures). Honored for drama is John Steppling, “Teenage Wedding” (Heliogabalus). A president’s award will go to Czechoslovakian president and playwright Vaclav Havel.

Other winners are: poetry, Mei Mei Berssennbrugge for “Empathy” (Station Hill Press); journalism, Shaw, “Pack Journalism” (The Times); young adult, Louise Moeri, “The Forty Third War” (Houghton Mifflin); children’s, Bartthe De Clements, “The Five Finger Discount” (Delacorte Press); translation, Suzanne Jill Levine, “The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata” by Adolfo Bicy Casares (E.P. Dutton).

The recipients will be honored at a banquet on April 27 at the Century Plaza.