Michael Lewis Wins Carl Sandburg Literary Award

The Chicago Public Library Foundation presented a Carl Sandburg Literary Award to journalist and nonfiction author Michael Lewis at this year’s annual dinner. The award is presented to an acclaimed author in recognition of outstanding contributions to the literary world and honors a significant body of work that has enhanced the public’s awareness of the written word.

Lewis, a bestselling author, is best known for his sports and finance journalism. In his most recent books, The Big Short and Boomerang, he astutely reports on the recent financial crisis and the global economic meltdown.

In The Big Short, Lewis puts a twist on the reportage of the 2007-2008 financial crisis by telling the story of those who bet on and profited from the failure of the sub-prime mortgage industry. Lewis, a former bond trader who told the story of his own time on Wall Street in his book Liar's Poker, is both informative and entertaining as he explains the trickery at work in the financial services industry. As Michiko Kukutani stated in her review of the book in the New York Times Book Review, “No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis.”

In Boomerang, which Publishers Weekly calls an “offbeat travelogue,” Lewis went on what he has described as a “financial disaster tour” to report on the impact of global economic meltdown in various parts of the world: Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Germany and California. Publishers Weekly states, “Lewis…manages to gracefully explain what happened with a unique regard for both the strengths and weaknesses of humankind.”