Poet Claudia Rankine, author Jack Livings win PEN prizes

NEW YORK - The Associated Press

Claudia Rankine

Poet Claudia Rankine has won another award, this time from PEN, while debut author Jack Livings received a $25,000 prize from the literary and human rights organization.
     
The PEN American Center announced June 8 night that Livings had won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for "The Dog," a collection of stories set in China. Rankine received the PEN Open Book Award and $5,000 for "Citizen: An American Lyric," which previously won the National Book Critics Circle prize for poetry.
     
Also Monday, Ian Buruma won the $10,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for essay writing for "Theater of Cruelty." The PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize, also worth $10,000, was given to Adriana E. Rammrez for "Dead Boys," an unpublished work about violence along the U.S.-Latin America border.