NEW YORK, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- "Tree of Smoke," Denis Johnson's novel about the Vietnam War, has won the National Book Award for fiction.
Johnson couldn't attend the event, so his wife, Cindy Lee, accepted the award on his behalf, reading from a speech he penned about how he was "very sorry to miss this one chance to dress up in a tuxedo in front of so many representatives of the world of literature and say thank you," The New York Times reported.
Times journalist Tim Weiner won the National Book Award for non-fiction for his tome, "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA."
Weiner, who earned a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on national security programs, accepted the award, saying his work was "a testament to the power of the record revealed and maybe to the fact that our democracy, in spite of everything, is still open enough to see a glimpse of what we have wrought abroad," the Times said.
The winners received a bronze statue and $10,000.
