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Graywolf Press author Geoff Dyer wins National Book Critics Award

Posted at 2:08 PM on March 9, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Books, Criticism, Writing

Last night the Twin Cities publishing house was awarded its third National Book Critics Circle Award, for Geoff Dyer's Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews.

Fiona McCrae, director and publisher at Graywolf Press, said of the book: "Geoff Dyer's critical essays are in a class of their own. He really owns this form, and he runs--flies--with it."

Geoff Dyer lives and writes in London; Graywolf is his publisher in the United States.

"Ever since I began writing I hoped to be published in America, and once I started getting published it was recognition in America that I longed for" said Dyer. "Being shortlisted for an NBCC prize a few years ago was a huge thrill; to actually be awarded it this time is a great honor."

Geoff Dyer

Otherwise Known as the Human Condition collects twenty-five years of essays, reviews, and misadventures, and has received wide acclaim for defying genres and infusing criticism with humor.

This is the second time that a Graywolf author has won the NBCC Award for criticism. Eula Biss won for Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays in 2010. In 2008, Graywolf poet Mary Jo Bang won the NBCC Award for her collection of poetry, Elegy.