Kingsolver to get first Holbrooke writing prize

(CBS/AP) DAYTON, Ohio - Author Barbara Kingsolver, a leader in the literature of social change, will be the first recipient of the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.

The award, previously known as the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's lifetime achievement award, has been renamed in honor of the late Ambassador U.N. Richard Holbrooke.

First given in 2006, the prize honors authors whose works promote peace. It was inspired by the Dayton peace accords on Bosnia brokered by Holbrooke in 1995 negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton in southwest Ohio.

Founder Sharon Rab says the prize organization wanted to honor Holbrooke's international role in seeking peace and his special importance to Dayton. The longtime U.S. diplomat died last December at age 69 following surgery on his torn aorta.

Kingsolver, 56 will receive award on Nov. 13. The novelist and poet is best known for her books "The Poisonwood Bible," a story of a missionary family in the Congo, and "The Lacuna" about a Mexican-American who runs afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.

Kingsolver has won numerous writing awards and her "The Poisonwood Bible," was on the Pulitzer Prize's short list.