Tuck wins National Book Award

Boston.com / A&E / Books: "New York-based writer Lily Tuck Wednesday night won the 2004 National Book Award for her historical novel of Latin America, ''The News From Paraguay." In nonfiction, the prize was awarded to Kevin Boyle for ''Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age," an account of the trial of a black man accused of the murder of a white man in 1920s Detroit.

The poetry winner was Jean Valentine for ''Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003." Pete Hautman's ''Godless" won in the young people's category.

Children's author Judy Blume received the medal for distinguished contribution to American letters.

Tuck's novel is based on the true story of an Irish woman in the 1850s who became the lover of the future dictator of Paraguay. It was perhaps the least controversial of this year's five fiction finalists, all of whom are based in New York, and several of which were regarded by some as too obscure and marginal for such a high-profile award, especially when such literary lions as Philip Roth, Russell Banks, Cynthia Ozick, and Tom Wolfe failed to make the short -list.

Laurence J. Kirshbaum, chairman of the Time Warner Book Group, reportedly told The New York Times that the industry was ''supporting our demise" by sponsoring the competition. But one of the fiction judges, novelist Stewart O'Nan, publicly dismissed the complaints, saying the judging is ''not a popularity contest."

Eyebrows had also been raised in the book world at one of the nonfiction finalists: ''The 9/11 Commission Report," written by the staff of the special commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The award, given by the National Book Foundation and largely funded by publishers, includes a $10,000 cash prize.

The runners-up in each category were:

In fiction: ''Madeleine is Sleeping," by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum; ''Florida," by Christine Schutt; ''Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories," by Joan Silber; and ''Our Kind: A Novel in Stories,"by Kate Walbert. In nonfiction: ''Washington's Crossing," by Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer; ''Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett," by Jennifer Gonnerman; ''Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare," by Harvard University literature professor Stephen Greenblatt; and ''The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- Authorized Edition." In poetry: ''Shoah Train," by William Heyen; ''Collected Poems," by Donald Justice; ''The Rest of Love," by Carl Phillips; and ''Goest," by Cole Swensen.

In young people's literature: ''Honey, Baby, Sweetheart," by Deb Caletti; ''Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance," by Laban Carrick Hill; ''The Legend of Buddy Bush," by Shelia P. Moses; and ''Luna," by Julie Anne Peters."