Plutarch Award 2017

Ruth Franklin wins 2017 Plutarch Award

Ruth Franklin won the 2017 Plutarch Award for Shirley Jackson, A Rather Haunted Life. Franklin received her award at the Eighth Annual BIO Conference, held in Boston, May 19-21.

Plutarch Award 2017 Nominees Announced

The Plutarch is the world’s only literary award given to biography by biographers. Named after the famous Ancient Greek biographer, the Plutarch is determined by secret ballot from a formal list of nominees selected by a committee of distinguished members of the craft. In alphabetical order by title, the nominees are:

• Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy, The Making of a Liberal Icon
• Louisa Thomas, The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams
• Alex Beam, The Feud. Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson and the End of a Beautiful Friendship
• Joseph Lelyveld, His Final Battle. The Last Months of Franklin Roosevelt
• Frances Wilson, Guilty Thing. A Life of Thomas De Quincey
• Volker Ullrich, Hitler. Ascent 1889-1939
• Ruth Scurr, John Aubrey, My Own Life
• Reiner Stach, Kafka. The Early Years
• Simon Callow, Orson Welles. One-Man Band
• Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson, A Rather Haunted Life

The current Plutarch Award Committee is:

James Atlas
Douglas Brinkley, Chair
Catherine Clinton
Deirdre A. David
John Aloysius Farrell
Carla Kaplan
Eve LaPlante
Hans Renders
Will Swift

The Plutarch Award is formally announced and awarded at the BIO Conference.

The Plutarch Award will be presented on Saturday, May 20, at the Eighth Annual BIO Conference in Boston.