English professor Laura Dassow Walls wins Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Thoreau biography | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › English professor Laura Dassow Walls wins Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Thoreau biography English professor Laura Dassow Walls wins Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Thoreau biography Published: April 30, 2018 Author: Carrie Gates Laura Dassow Walls, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, has won the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography for her latest work, “Henry David Thoreau: A Life.”   The prize was announced on April 20, in a ceremony at the University of Southern California. Now a program of the Los Angeles Times Foundation, the prizes are dedicated to honoring literary luminaries, championing new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing from authors at all stages of their careers.   Past recipients include a who’s who of contemporary literature, such as Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Allen Ginsberg, Laura Hillenbrand and Claudia Rankine.   “This tremendous honor means all the more coming from the Los Angeles Times, one of our nation’s most stalwart defenders of the free press and most rigorous sources of news about our world,” Walls said. “Thoreau immersed himself in the life of Walden Pond in order to heal the radical separation that, even in his day, was dividing a world of words feeding only on other words, from what Thoreau called ‘the solid earth! the actual world!’ — the natural and social environment in which we must all be grounded, if we are to connect with each other and share a sense of the real.   “Thoreau may have come down to us as the apostle of solitude, but as a writer he gave himself to the act of creating community — a community that this award recognizes and affirms, from coast to coast. For that, I am profoundly grateful.”   This is the latest honor for Wall’s critically acclaimed biography, which has seen tremendous success.   The first edition sold out even before its official publication date of July 12, 2017, Thoreau’s 200th birthday. And the book — the first comprehensive biography of Thoreau since 1965 — has been praised in reviews by the The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others.   “Laura’s book is quite remarkable, and it’s been exciting to see it getting such a wonderful reception,” said John T. McGreevy, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “It’s certainly gotten more attention than any book of ours in recent memory.”   Walls, a scholar of American transcendentalism, environmental literature and the intersection of science and literature, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010 to begin work on the book. She was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2015 to complete the project. Posted In: Faculty and Staff Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 09, 2022 Karrie Koesel to testify before Congressional-Executive Commission on China August 18, 2022 Two faculty win NEH grants to research history of red hair, philosophy of revelation August 16, 2022 NSF names Center for Computer-Assisted Synthesis a Phase II Center for Chemical Innovation August 15, 2022 Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., on Russian atrocities against clergy in Ukraine For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn