Dayton Literary Peace Prize

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is an annual United States literary award "recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace" that was first awarded in 2006.^[1] Awards are given for adult fiction and non-fiction books published at some point within the immediate past year that have led readers to a better understanding of other peoples, cultures, religions, and political views, with the winner in each category receiving a cash prize of $10,000.^[1] The award is an offshoot of the Dayton Peace Prize, which grew out of the 1995 peace accords ending the Bosnian War.^[2] In 2011, the former "Lifetime Achievement Award" was renamed the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award with a $10,000 honorarium.

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize logo

In 2008, Martin Luther King Jr. biographer Taylor Branch joined Studs Terkel and Elie Wiesel as a recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award,^[3] which was presented to him special guest Edwin C. Moses.^[4] The 2008 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio, on September 28, 2008.^[3] Nick Clooney, who hosted the ceremony in 2007,^[5] again served as the evening's host in 2008^[6] and 2009.^[7]

The 2009 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio, on November 8, 2009,^[7] at which married authors and journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award.^[8]

Recipients

Fiction

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2006	Francine Prose	A Changed Man	Winner	[9]
	Kevin Haworth	The Discontinuity of Small Things	Runner-up	[9]
2007	Brad Kessler	Birds in Fall	Winner	[10][11]
	Lisa Fugard	Skinner's Drift	Runner-up	[10][11]
2008	Junot Díaz	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	Winner	[12]
	Daniel Alarcón	Lost City Radio	Runner-up	[12]
2009	Richard Bausch	Peace	Winner	[13][14]
	Uwem Akpan	Say You're One of Them	Runner-up	[14]
	Louise Erdrich	The Plague of Doves	Finalist	[15]
	Ma Jian	Beijing Coma	Finalist	[15]
	Rachel Kushner	Telex from Cuba	Finalist	[15]
	James McBride	Song Yet Sung	Finalist	[15]
2010	Marlon James	The Book of Night Women	Winner	[16][17]
	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	The Thing Around Your Neck	Runner-up	[16]
	Lucy Beckett	A Postcard from the Volcano	Finalist	[18]
	Ha Jin	A Good Fall	Finalist	[18]
	Eugenia Kim	The Calligrapher's Daughter	Finalist	[18]
	Abraham Verghese	Cutting for Stone	Finalist	[18]
2011	Chang-rae Lee	The Surrendered	Winner	[19]
	Maaza Mengiste	Beneath the Lion's Gaze	Runner-up	[19]
	Dinaw Mengestu	How to Read the Air	Finalist	[20]
	Mark Mustian	The Gendarme	Finalist	[20]
	Teddy Wayne	Kapitoil	Finalist	[20][21]
2012	Andrew Krivak	The Sojourn	Winner	[22][23]
	Ha Jin	Nanjing Requiem	Runner-up	[22][23]
	Leah Hager Cohen	The Grief of Others	Finalist	[24]
	Michael Ondaatje	The Cat's Table	Finalist	[24]
	Ismet Prcic	Shards	Finalist	[24]
	Jesmyn Ward	Salvage the Bones	Finalist	[24]
2013	Adam Johnson	The Orphan Master's Son	Winner	[25]
	Ben Fountain	Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk	Runner-up	[25]
	Louise Erdrich	The Round House	Finalist	[26]
	Susanna Moore	The Life of Objects	Finalist	[26]
	Robert Olmstead	The Coldest Night	Finalist	[26]
	Kevin Powers	The Yellow Birds	Finalist	[26]
2014	Bob Shacochis	The Woman Who Lost Her Soul	Winner	[27][28]
	Margaret Wrinkle	Wash	Runner-up	[28]
	Anthony Marra	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Finalist	[29]
	Alice McDermott	Someone	Finalist	[29]
	Antonio Muñoz Molina with Edith Grossman	In the Night of Time	Finalist	[29]
	P.S. Duffy	The Cartographer of No Man's Land	Finalist	[29]
2015	Josh Weil	The Great Glass Sea	Winner	[30]
	Anthony Doerr	All the Light We Cannot See	Runner-up	[30]
	Roxane Gay	An Untamed State	Finalist	[31]
	Cristina Henriquez	The Book of Unknown Americans	Finalist	[31]
	Jacqueline Winspear	The Care and Management of Lies	Finalist	[31]
	Tiphanie Yanique	Land of Love and Drowning	Finalist	[31]
2016	Viet Thanh Nguyen	The Sympathizer	Winner	[32][33][34]
	James Hannaham	Delicious Foods	Runner-up	[32]
	Elliot Ackerman	Green on Blue	Finalist	[35]
	Matt Gallagher	Youngblood	Finalist	[35]
	Aline Ohanesian	Orhan's Inheritance	Finalist	[35]
	Hanya Yanagihara	A Little Life	Finalist	[35]
2017	Patricia Engel	The Veins of the Ocean	Winner	[36]
	Yaa Gyasi	Homegoing	Runner-up	[36]
	Robert Olen Butler	Perfume River	Finalist	[37]
	Peter Ho Davies	The Fortunes	Finalist	[37]
	Annie Proulx	Barkskins	Finalist	[37]
	Colson Whitehead	The Underground Railroad	Finalist	[37]
2018	Hala Alyan	Salt Houses	Winner	[38][39]
	Min Jin Lee	Pachinko	Runner-up	[39]
	Jenny Erpenbeck	Go, Went, Gone	Finalist	[40]
	Mohsin Hamid	Exit West	Finalist
	Jaroslav Kalfař	Spaceman of Bohemia	Finalist
	Jesmyn Ward	Sing, Unburied, Sing	Finalist
2019	Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde	What We Owe	Winner	[41]
	Richard Powers	The Overstory	Runner-up	[41]
	Gina Apostol	Insurrecto	Finalist	[42]
	Mary Lynn Bracht	White Chrysanthemum	Finalist	[42]
	Tommy Orange	There There	Finalist	[42]
	Moriel Rothman Zecher	Sadness Is a White Bird	Finalist	[42]
2020	Alice Hoffman	The World That We Knew	Winner	[43][44][45]
	Christy Lefteri	The Beekeeper of Aleppo	Runner-up	[43][44]
	Valeria Luiselli	Lost Children Archive	Finalist	[46]
	Maurice Carlos Ruffin	We Cast a Shadow	Finalist	[46]
	Elif Shafak	10 Minutes, 38 Seconds	Finalist	[46]
	Colson Whitehead	The Nickel Boys	Finalist	[46]
2021	Alexander Starritt	We Germans	Winner	[47]
	Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai	The Mountains Sing	Runner-up	[47]
	Louise Erdrich	The Night Watchman	Finalist	[44]
	James McBride	Deacon King Kong	Finalist	[44]
	Douglas Stuart	Shuggie Bain	Finalist	[44]
	Elizabeth Wetmore	Valentine	Finalist	[44]
2022	Honorée Fanonne Jeffers	The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois	Winner	[48]
	JoAnne Tompkins	What Comes After	Runner-up	[48]
	Anthony Doerr	Cloud Cuckoo Land	Finalist	[48]
	Patricia Engel	Infinite Country	Finalist	[48]
	Brad Kessler	North	Finalist	[48]
	Juhea Kim	Beasts of a Little Land	Finalist	[48]
2023	Geraldine Brooks	Horse	Winner	[49]
	Lily Brooks-Dalton	The Light Pirate	Runner-up	[49]
	James Hannaham	Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta	Finalist	[49]
	Noah Hawley	Anthem	Finalist	[49]
	Susan Straight	Mecca	Finalist	[49]
	Vauhini Vara	The Immortal King Rao	Finalist	[49]
2024	Paul Lynch	Prophet Song	Winner	[50]
	Anne Berest	The Postcard	Runner-up	[50]
	Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai	Dust Child	Finalist	[50]
	Janika Oza	A History of Burning	Finalist	[50]
	Eleanor Shearer	River Sing Me Home	Finalist	[50]
	Erum Shazia Hasan	We Meant Well	Finalist	[50]

Nonfiction

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2006	Stephen Walker	Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima	Winner	[9]
	Adam Hochschild	Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves	Runner-up	[9]
2007	Mark Kurlansky	Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea	Winner	[10][11]
	Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin	Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time	Runner-up	[10][11]
2008	Edwidge Danticat	Brother, I'm Dying	Winner	[12][45]
	Cullen Murphy	Are We Rome	Runner-up	[12]
2009	Benjamin Skinner	A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery	Winner	[14]
	Thomas Friedman	Hot, Flat, and Crowded	Runner-up	[14]
	Nicholson Baker	Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization	Finalist	[15]
	Joan Baxter	Dust from our Eyes: An Unblinkered Look at Africa	Finalist	[15]
	David Grossman	Writing in the Dark	Finalist	[15]
	Ariel Sabar	My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Father's Past	Finalist	[15]
	Strobe Talbott	The Great Experiment	Finalist	[15]
2010	Dave Eggers	Zeitoun	Winner	[16][17]
	Justine Hardy	In the Valley of Mist	Runner-up	[16]
	Roger Thurowand Scott Kilman	Enough: Why the Worlds Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty	Finalist	[18]
	Greg Mortenson	Stones into Schools	Finalist	[18]
	Michael Norman and Elizabeth Norman	Tears in the Darkness: the Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath	Finalist	[18]
	Chinua Achebe	The Education of a British-Protected Child	Finalist	[18]
2011	Wilbert Rideau	In The Place Of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance	Winner	[19][17]
	Isabel Wilkerson	The Warmth of Other Suns	Runner-up	[19]
	Kai Bird	Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956–1978	Finalist	[20]
	Conor Grennan	Little Princes	Finalist	[20]
	Laura Hillenbrand	Unbroken	Finalist	[20]
	Mac McClelland	For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question	Finalist	[20]
2012	Adam Hochschild	To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918	Winner	[22][23]
	Annia Ciezadlo	Day of Honey	Runner-up	[22][23]
	Caroline Moorehead	A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France	Finalist	[24]
	Leymah Gbowee	Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer and Sex Changed a Nation at War: A Memoir	Finalist	[24]
	Karl Marlantes	What It Is Like to Go to War	Finalist	[24]
2013	Andrew Solomon	Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity	Winner	[25]
	Gilbert King	Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America	Runner-up	[25]
	Katherine Boo	Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity	Finalist	[26]
	Carmen Bugan	Burying the Typewriter	Finalist	[26]
	Blaine Harden	Escape from Camp 14	Finalist	[26]
	Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac	Pax Ethnica	Finalist	[26]
2014	Karima Bennoune	Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here	Winner	[28]
	Jo Roberts	Contested Land, Contested Memory: Israel's Jews and Arabs and the Ghosts of Catastrophe	Runner-up	[28]
	Steve McQuiddy	Here on the Edge: How a Small Group of World War II Conscientious Objectors Took Art and Peace from the Margins to the Mainstream	Finalist	[29]
	Katy Butler	Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death	Finalist	[29]
	Jesmyn Ward	Men We Reaped: A Memoir	Finalist	[29]
	David Finkel	Thank You for Your Service	Finalist	[29]
2015	Bryan Stevenson	Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption	Winner	[30]
	Jeff Hobbs	The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace	Runner-up	[30]
	Elizabeth D. Samet	No Man's Land: Preparing for War and Peace in Post-9/11 America	Finalist	[31]
	Lacy Johnson	The Other Side	Finalist	[31]
	Meline Toumani	There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond	Finalist	[31]
	Jeff Chang	Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America	Finalist	[31]
2016	Susan Southard	Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War	Winner	[32]
	Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner	Find Me Unafraid	Runner-up	[32]
	Ta-Nehisi Coates	Between the World and Me	Finalist	[35]
	Wil Haygood	Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America	Finalist	[35]
	Wab Kinew	The Reason You Walk	Finalist	[35]
	Jan Jarboe Russell	The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II	Finalist	[35]
2017	David Wood	What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars	Winner	[36]
	Ben Rawlence	City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp	Runner-up	[36]
2018	Ta-Nehisi Coates	We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy	Winner	[39][34]
	Michelle Kuo	Reading with Patrick	Runner-up	[39]
2019	Eli Saslow	Rising Out of Hatred	Winner	[41]
	Wil Haygood	Tigerland	Runner-up	[41]
	Tara Westover	Educated	Finalist	[42]
	David W. Blight	Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom	Finalist	[42]
	Khalida Brohi	I Should Have Honor	Finalist	[42]
	Anthony Hinton with Lara Love Hardin	The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row	Finalist	[42]
2020	Chanel Miller	Know My Name	Winner	[43][44][45]
	Jennifer Eberhardt	The Beekeeper of Aleppo	Runner-up	[43][44]
2021	Ariana Neumann	When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains	Winner	[47]
	Jordan Ritter Conn	The Road from Raqqa	Runner-up	[47]
	Toni Jenson	Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land	Finalist	[44]
	Isabel Wilkerson	Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents	Finalist	[44]
	Valarie Kaur	See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love	Finalist	[44]
	Michele Harper	The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir	Finalist	[44]
2022	Clint Smith	How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America	Winner	[48]
	Andrea Elliott	Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City	Runner-up	[48]
	Amanda Ripley	High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out	Finalist	[48]
	Shugri Said Salh	The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert: A Memoir	Finalist	[48]
	Heather McGhee	The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together	Finalist	[48]
	Evan Osnos	Wildland: The Making of America's Fury	Finalist	[48]
2023	Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa	His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice	Winner	[49]
	Adam Hochschild	American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis	Runner-up	[49]
	Catherine Ceniza Choy	Asian American Histories of the United States	Finalist	[49]
	Putsata Reang	Ma and Me: A Memoir	Finalist	[49]
	Ben Rawlence	The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth	Finalist	[49]
	Ghafari with Hannah Lucinda Smith	Zarifa: A Woman's Battle in a Man's World	Finalist	[49]
2024	Victor Luckerson	Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street	Winner	[50]
	Tania Branigan	Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution	Runner-up	[50]
	Edwin Raymond with Jon Sternfeld	An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America	Finalist	[50]
	Dana Sachs	All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis	Finalist	[50]
	Darrin Bell	The Talk	Finalist	[50]
	Dina Nayeri	Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough	Finalist	[50]

Lifetime Achievement Award

Year	Author	Ref.
2006	Studs Terkel	[9]
2007	Elie Wiesel	[10][11]
2008	Taylor Branch	[12]
2009	Nicholas Kristof	[14][15]
	Sheryl WuDunn	[14][15]

Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award

Year	Author	Ref.
2010	Geraldine Brooks	[16][51]
2011	Barbara Kingsolver	[17][52]
2012	Tim O'Brien	[53]
2013	Wendell Berry	[54]
2014	Louise Erdrich	[55][56]
2015	Gloria Steinem	[57]
2016	Marilynne Robinson	[58]
2017	Colm Tóibín	[59]
2018	John Irving	[60]
2019	N. Scott Momaday	[61][62]
2020/2021	Margaret Atwood	[47][63]
2022	Wil Haygood	[48]
2023	Sandra Cisneros	[64]
2024	Jimmy Carter	[65]