7 Works Announced as Winners of 1991 Times Book Prizes

A history of the migration of millions of blacks from the Deep South to big cities and a work on the disenchantment of Americans with politics were among seven books named Thursday as winners of the 1991 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

Nicholas Lemann won the book prize for history with “The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America,” and E.J. Dionne Jr. was selected in the current-interest category for “Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process.”

The awards were announced at a New York reception for publishers of the chosen books. The winning authors will be honored at a reception and awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Nov. 1. Each writer will receive a citation and $1,000.

An eighth author will be honored in the Los Angeles ceremony with the Robert Kirsch Award, presented annually to a living writer whose home or focus has been in the West and whose career contributions to American letters deserve recognition as a body of work. The Kirsch Award is named after The Times’ book critic, who died in 1980.

This year’s program included a new category--the Art Seidenbaum Award for a writer’s first work of fiction. The award was established in honor of the late Art Seidenbaum, founder of the book prizes and book editor of The Times from 1978 to 1984.

David Wong Louie is the first winner of the Seidenbaum Award for “Pangs of Love,” a collection of stories centering on the themes of displacement and alienation. Louie was born in Rockville Center, N.Y., and attended Vassar College and the University of Iowa. His work has appeared in numerous magazines.

Lemann’s book explores the movement of 5 million blacks to the northern cities between the early 1940s--when the mechanical cotton picker went into mass production--and the late 1960s. It concludes that the 20-year migration turned race relations into a issue affecting the texture of life in nearly every city and suburb in the nation.

In his book, Dionne contends that because of the nation’s growing disillusionment with politics, the paths offered by liberals and conservatives present “false choices,” without connection to most Americans’ deepest values and concerns.

The award for biography went to T.H. Watkins for “Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold Ickes, 1874-1952.” Watkins is vice president of the Wilderness Society and editor of its award-winning magazine “Wilderness.”

In his 1,000-page biography, Watkins recounts the story of Ickes, a poor boy from Altoona, Pa., who became secretary of the Interior and head of the Public Works Administration during the New Deal years. The author credits Ickes for being an early defender of American Indians, blacks and women, and for creating the national park system.

Receiving the award for fiction was Allan Gurganus, a resident of New York City and Chapel Hill, N.C., for “White People: Stories and Novellas.” Gurganus writes about the foibles and misguided zeal of white Americans.

The award for poetry went to Philip Levine, a Detroit native who now lives in Fresno, for “What Work Is,” a series of poems praising the American working class.

Grigori Medvedev was honored for a work of science and technology for “The Truth About Chernobyl: A Minute-by-Minute Account by a Leading Soviet Nuclear Physicist of the World’s Largest Nuclear Disaster and Coverup.” The author’s uncensored account describes the Soviet bureaucracy’s panic, incompetence and disregard for life during the crisis.

Book prizes have been offered by The Times since 1980. Six committees of three judges select the winners in each category. None of the judges are Times employees.