In the mid-1980's a Pulitzer-prize winning author refused the American
Book Award, calling it a "disgrace to the American publishing
industry." Who was the author and does the award still exist?

Hello beevis-ga,

The award was only unofficially called the American Book Award at the
time, and the person doing the rejecting was only nominated, but the
answer nevertheless appears to be: (1) Peter Taylor, and (2) the award
is now the National Book Award.

The award was called the National Book Award to begin with, but became
the American Book Award from 1980 to 1983 (for books from the prior
year), and then went back again to the National Book Award.

"National Book Awards"
The Literary Award Database
http://www.geocities.com/~jacknowicki/nba_main.htm

Peter Taylor won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for literature for "A Summons
to Memphis".  He was also nominated for the 1986 National Book Award
for the same work.

"Winners of Major American Fiction Prizes" [Google cache]
siler [a web page at the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania]
http://web.archive.org/web/20011126125421/http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~siler/litlists/the_lists.html

According to a Washington Post commentary at that time:

"Taylor ... behaved ... foolishly when 'A Summons to Memphis' failed
to win the American Book Award for fiction last November.  The novel
was on the short list of three nominees, but after Taylor learned in
advance that the award had gone elsewhere, he refused to attend the
awards ceremony, defending his action on the highly debatable -- and
most certainly ex post facto -- grounds that the short list pitted
writers against each other in unseemly competition."

"Taylor reviews" [scroll down about 2/3 down the page to "Peter
Taylor's Long-Overdue Pulitzer", by Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post,
Page B2, April 20, 1987]
Peter Schmidt, Department of English, Swarthmore
Collegehttp://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/engl116/old.E116/taylor.html

Another article notes that Taylor called the award a "'disservice to
the arts.'"

"Happy Birthday, NBA:  National Book Awards mark 50th year", by Hillel
Italie, Associated Press writer (11-14-99) [scroll to near the bottom
of the page]
South Coast Today
http://www.s-t.com/daily/11-99/11-14-99/e07li175.htm

The particular phrase "disgrace to the American publishing industry"
does not appear on the major search engines (after all, this happened
before the age of the Internet), but as you can see, Taylor said
basically the same thing.

- justaskscott-ga


I used these search terms in various combinations on Google:

"american book award"
"american book awards"
pulitzer
"disgrace to the American publishing industry" [also searched for this
on Google Groups and Ixquick]
refused
"refused to accept"
"peter taylor"
"summons to memphis"
"national book award"
"national book awards"

Wow. I didn't expect an answer so quickly to a question I myself
researched several times online. Many thanks to the very savvy person
who found the answer.