Six Degrees of the Library Collection - Whiting Writers Award to Arthur C. Clarke

In the spirit of the theory of six degrees of separation - that any two people in the world can be connected to one another through six relationships - we bring you what will become a semi-regular feature called “Six Degrees of the Library Collection”-- a walk through the connections between seemingly random items in the HPL collection.

In late October, winners of the annual Whiting Writings Award were announced. The award goes to ten emerging authors who show great talent and promise. Winners included novelist Mischa Berlinski, whose first novel Fieldwork was a National Book Award Nominee last year, and writer Manuel Munoz, author of the short story collection The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue.

Jeffrey Eugenides, author of the book Middlesex, was a previous winner of the Whiting Writers’Award in 1993.  Jeffrey Eugenides is also the author of The Virgin Suicides, which was adapted for film by director Sophia Coppola. Sophia Coppola’s most recent film, Marie Antoinette was inspired by her reading of Antonia Fraser’s 2002 biography Marie Antoinette: the Journey.

Antonia Fraser, a celebrated writer of historical biography, married Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter in 1980. Pinter passed away on December 24th.

In addition to being a celebrated writer of his own account, Pinter adapted a number of pieces for film, including the writing the screenplay for the film adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

The book the Handmaid’s Tale won the inaugural Arthur C. Clarke award for Science Fiction writing. The award was created by the celebrated Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke (who also died in 2008).