Peter Matthiessen wins National Book Award for Fiction

Peter Matthiessen won the National Book Award's fiction category Wednesday night for Shadow Country, a revision of a trilogy of novels he wrote in the 1990s about Florida Everglades sugarcane farmer, Edgar J. Watson.

Matthiessen's literary career has been long and varied. In 1953, he co-founded The Paris Review with Harold Humes and George Plimpton; in the 1960's he became a Zen priest and wrote about wildlife, helping to found the American environmental movement.

Matthiessen's nonfiction includes In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, documenting the American Indian Movement's struggles with the United States government, and The Snow Leopard, a book about an expedition into the Himalayas for which he won a National Book Award.

Biography of Peter Matthiessen
Prior National Book Award Winners

_{Photo Credit: Jesse Close}