The GLBTRT Stonewall Book Awards Committee is proud to announce the 2009 awards for non-fiction and literature. The Barbara Gittings Literature Award winner is "Light Fell" by Evan Fallenberg, published by Soho Press. Set in the context of Professor Joseph Licht's 50th birthday party, this debut novel sensitively expresses and portrays the dilemma of an Israeli gay man who twenty years before left his wife and five young sons for the love of another man. Now Joseph is trying to reconcile this life changing decision with his responsibility to his family, his spirituality, and his God. With rich characterization and eloquent writing Fallenberg explores the inner lives of a family and the universal applicability of the social and religious issues they face.
The Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award winner is "Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003" by William N. Eskridge, Jr., published by Viking. This landmark volume explores a historically underrepresented area of GLBT legal and social scholarship. The destructive impact of sodomy laws is traced through their evolution and the consequences for the men and women who were impacted by their creation and enforcement. It makes a complex subject approachable for a general audience. This is the perfect marriage of scholarship and readability.
The members of the Stonewall Book Awards Committee include Elizabeth Briggs (Chair), Andrew F. Johnson, Eric W. Johnson, Lisa Johnston, Danielle Pollock, James Simonis, Dale McNeill, and Robert B. Ridinger.