During the PEN/Faulkner award ceremony on 10th May, LeVar Burton will be named its inaugural Literacy Champion.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded on an annual basis and celebrates the best works of fiction by living American citizens which comes with a cash prize and prestige for the winners and is awarded by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
This year will see the first-ever PEN/Faulkner Literacy Champion which will “recognize devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers,” according to a press release issued by the Foundation on Tuesday. The recipient of the Literacy Champion is none other than LeVar Burton, former Star Trek actor and host of Reading Rainbow; an American half-hour children’s educational TV with the aim to teach children reading skills.
LeVar Burton stated “I come from a family for whom service to others is the highest possible calling. Whatever efforts I have made toward advancing the cause of literacy, give honour to my mother, Erma Gene Christian, my first teacher and from whom I have inherited my love for books and reading. As we move forward out of a time when alternative facts and mendacious propaganda shaped public opinion, the work you do through the PEN/Faulkner Award, and your committed investment in DC schools, has never been more important. I couldn’t be more honoured to be the inaugural PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion.”
For more information on the PEN/Faulkner award visit https://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/
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