Two professors from The University of Texas at Austin Wayne Rebhorn of the Department of English and Bill Minutaglio of the School of Journalism have been selected to receive PEN Awards from the PEN USA Center, a human rights and literary organization devoted to defending free expression.
The PEN Literary Awards have honored and introduced some of the most outstanding voices in literature for more than 50 years. Past recipients include Ray Bradbury, Elmore Leonard, Carolyn See, Gore Vidal and Billy Wilder.
Rebhorn, the Celanese Centennial Professor of English at the university, received the Translation award for “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio. Published on the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio’s birth, Rebhorn’s new translation has received prominent awards and widespread critical acclaim. Publishers Weekly described his version as “eminently readable and devoid of the stilted, antiquated speech associated with the classics his translation’s accessibility allows for the timeless humanity of the work to shine through.”
A leading scholar of Renaissance literature, Rebhorn has won numerous literary awards and prizes, and he has been invited to lecture at major universities throughout the United States and Europe. To read more about his translation, visit Life and Letters at the College of Liberal Arts.
Minutaglio, a clinical professor in the university’s School of Journalism, won the Research Nonfiction award for “Dallas 1963.” Co-authored with Steven L. Davis, a curator at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos, “Dallas 1963” examines the events leading to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Since its publication in 2013, the book garnered widespread media attention from dozens of national publications, including the New Yorker, the Associated Press, Texas Monthly and the Daily Beast. PARADE Magazine cited it as “one of the top three JFK books.”
Minutaglio has been published in The New York Times, Esquire, Newsweek, Texas Monthly and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Prior to coming to UT Austin, he worked at The Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He has written acclaimed books about George W. Bush, Molly Ivins and the 1947 Texas City explosion, America’s greatest industrial disaster. Visit his website for more about his work.
The award winners will receive $1,000 prizes at the 24th Annual Literary Awards Festival on Nov. 11 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills, California.
