On September 25, 2010, the Library of Congress announced the awarding of the Creative Achievement Award for Fiction to Isabel Allende. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington offered the following remarks on Allende’s award, which was conferred at the 2010 National Book Festival:

[Isabel Allende's] works weave wonderful elements of that special quality of writers, of our neighbors to the south in this hemisphere, of magical realism, ... which often depicts women and their struggles in particular sensitivity.

Isabel Allende received the 2010 Creative Achievement Award for Fiction from the Librarian of Congress during the 2010 Library of Congress National Book Festival on September 25, 2010. [View recording of award announcement.]

About the Prize

Since 2008, the Library of Congress has awarded a prize to distinguished writers of fiction. The Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award for the Writing of Fiction was created to honor a career dedicated to the literary arts. This award was first presented to Herman Wouk on Sept. 10, 2008. This inaugural award has inspired subsequent Library of Congress fiction awards, given in connection with the Library’s annual National Book Festival.

From 2009 to 2012, the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for fiction was presented to John Grisham, Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison and Philip Roth. Beginning in 2013, the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction has been presented to an author for a body of extraordinary work. Recipients have included Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson, Denis Johnson, E. Annie Proulx, Richard Ford and Colson Whitehead.

The annual Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction is meant to honor an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but also for its originality of thought and imagination. The award seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that, throughout long, consistently accomplished careers, have told us something about the American experience.