2010

Edmund White, author and Professor of Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts, has been awarded the Premio Letterario Internazionale Mondello, one of Italy’s most prestigious international literary prizes. White won the award for Best Foreign Author for his biography, Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel.

The award will be presented to White in a special ceremony in Palermo in May. "I must collect the prize in person (that's the rule), which is no hardship since it will give me the chance to visit Sicily for the first time. I'm published in Italy by a miniscule house and I'm delighted also for their sake," said White. Major authors who have previously received the prize include Doris Lessing, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, José Saramago, Milan Kundera, Thomas Bernhard, Christa Wolf, Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut and Friedrich Dürrenmatt.