ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
Daniel Goldhagen's investigation of the role of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust and Frank McCourt's best selling memoir of an impoverished Irish childhood are among the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle awards.
The National Book Critics Circle, which is comprised of 600 critics and editors, announced the finalists for its annual awards this week. Winners are to be announced March 18 at a reception at New York University Law School.
Goldhagen's ``Hitler's Willing Executioners'' (Knopf) is a finalist in the general nonfiction category. Other nonfiction finalists are: ``The Great Books'' (Simon & Schuster), by David Denby; ``Ashes to Ashes'' (Knopf), by Richard Kluger; ``The Middle East'' (Simon & Schuster), by Bernard Lewis; and ``Bad Land'' (Pantheon), by Jonathan Raban.
McCourt's ``Angela's Ashes'' (Scribner) is one of five finalists in the biography and autobiography category. Others are: ``Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography'' (Cambridge), by Peter Conn; ``Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn'' (Farrar, Straus), by David Hajdu; ``The Last Happy Occasion'' (Chicago), by Alan Shapiro; and ``Charles Ives: A Life in Music'' (Norton), by Jan Swafford.
Fiction finalists are: ``About Schmidt'' (Knopf), by Louis Begley; ``Women in their Beds'' (Counterpoint), by Gina Berriault; ``Dancing After Hours'' (Knopf) by Andre Dubus; ``The Autobiography of My Mother'' (Farrar, Straus), by Jamaica Kincaid; and ``From Bondage'' (St. Martin's), by Henry Roth.
Finalists in the poetry category are: ``Loosestrife'' (Norton), by Stephen Dunn; ``Imagine the Angels of Bread'' (Norton), by Martin Espada; ``Sun Under Wood'' (Ecco), by Robert Hass; ``Music Minus One'' (Picador), by Jane Shore; and ``The Vigil'' (Farrar, Straus), by C.K. Williams.
The finalists for criticism are: ``Art for Art's Sake and Literary Life'' (Nebraska), by Gene H. Bell-Villada; ``The True Story of the Novel'' (Rutgers), by Margaret Anne Doody; ``Finding a Form'' (Knopf), by William Gass; ``The Love Affair as a Work of Art'' (Farrar, Straus), by Dan Hofstadter; and ``Fame and Folly'' (Knopf), by Cynthia Ozick.
The Book Critics Circle said it also would give its Ivan Sandrof Award for lifetime achievement to Albert Murray, in recognition of his contributions to American arts and letters.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB