Irving wins literary peace award

Committee cites the compassion in the work of bestselling author

CINCINNATI The author of novels such as The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules that examine the complexities of sexual differences and other social issues is this year’s winner of a lifetime achievement award celebrating literature’s power to foster peace, social justice and global understanding, organizers said Tuesday. Dayton Literary Peace Prize officials chose John Irving, whose first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published 50 years ago when he was 26, for the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.

Sharon Rab, founder and chairwoman of the peace prize foundation, said Irving ’s books often show “the tragedy of a lack of empathy and sympathy for our fellow humans ... through books — especially Irving ’s books — readers learn to understand and identify with people different from themselves.”

Irving’s all-time bestselling novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, examines faith, fate and social justice through the intertwined lives of two boyhood friends. Often using humour to illuminate deep topics, Irving’s works have included bisexual, homosexual and transgender people.

The National Book Award-winning The World According to Garp was made into a movie starring the late Robin Williams, and Irving won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie version of The Cider House Rules, which deals with issues including abortion.

Irving said in a statement that if a prize helps bring attention to his subject matter, he welcomes it.

“I’ve written about sexual difference and sexual minorities — at times, when the prevailing literary culture labelled it bizarre or unreachable,” said the Exeter, N.H.-born author who now lives in Toronto. “I’ve written with the hope that the bigotry, hatred and flat-out violence perpetrated on sexual minorities would become a relic of the past. In that sense I’ve written in protest — I’ve written protest novels.”