National Book Award ups the boldface with nominations for Doctorow and Didion

U . S . L I T E RAT U R E P R I Z E S

E. L. Doctorow’s Civil War novel The March, and Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of her husband’s death and daughter’s illness, were among finalists announced yesterday for the National Book Award. The U.S. National Book Foundation’s annual awards for fiction, non- fiction, poetry and young people’s literature will be presented at a Nov. 16 ceremony in Manhattan, where Norman Mailer and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti will receive lifetime achievement awards. Didion and Doctorow are among the best- known of the nominees, after the foundation came under fire last year for nominating obscure writers. Didion’s works include the novel The Last Thing He Wanted. Doctorow is the author of such best- sellers as

Ragtime and Billy Bathgate.