The Plutarch Award Finalists for 2019
Here are the four finalists for the 2019 Plutarch Award, honoring the best biography published in 2018, listed in alphabetical order by author:
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- AFTER EMILY: TWO REMARKABLE WOMEN AND THE LEGACY OF AMERICA’S GREATEST POET by Julie Dobrow, (W. W. Norton) A public scandal, a bitter lawsuit, and a decades-long dispute over the tiny hand-sewn books of poetry discovered in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom at the time of her death propel Julie Dobrow’s narrative of an ambitious mother-daughter pair whose work shaped American literary history. Dobrow’s impressive scholarship, crystal-clear prose, and insistence on the value of lives on the edge of history’s spotlight make this a uniquely memorable and instructive biography.
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- IN EXTREMIS: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE WAR CORRESPONDENT MARIE COLVIN by Lindsey Hilsum, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) How much risk is too much? Or, as Marie Colvin herself asked, where does bravery end and bravado begin? These questions hover in the background and then come to the fore in Lindsay Hilsum’s account of the daring and driven war correspondent, one of far too many journalists killed in the line of duty in recent years. Colvin’s diaries and the judicious use of excerpts from her vivid news stories make this book a riveting journey.
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- CHURCHILL: WALKING WITH DESTINY by Andrew Roberts, (Viking) A magnificent and carefully nuanced life and times of Winston Churchill, elegantly written, studded with new research, and deeply imagined. Andrew Roberts accomplishes a minor miracle in offering a fresh, empathetic portrait in an authoritative and fast-paced narrative that never flags. Roberts explores Winston Churchill’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader, his self-centeredness and his generosity, allowing us to feel both Churchill’s personal vulnerabilities as well as his force as a public figure.
2019 Plutarch Jury members:
Megan Marshall, chair; Peniel E. Joseph, Susan Quinn, Will Swift, Amanda Vaill
