Didion receives honorary award

Joan Didion, the author and essayist whose 2005 memoir was titled “The Year of Magical Thinking,” will receive an honorary National Book Award medal this fall for “distinguished contribution to American letters.”

Terry Gross, who has interviewed Didion and countless other authors as host of National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program, won the Literarian Award for “outstanding service to the American literary community.”

The honors were announced Monday by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization that presents the National Book Awards, now in their 58th year.

Didion and Gross will officially receive their prizes at the annual National Book Awards ceremony, to be held Nov. 14 in New York City.