CHICAGO, Aug. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Elie Wiesel, author of more than 50 books and recipient of the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded the 2012 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement.

Wiesel will receive the award on Sunday, November 11 at Chicago's Symphony Center at 10 a.m. during a Chicago Tribune Printers Row program presented in conjunction with the Chicago Humanities Festival.

"We are deeply honored to bestow the Chicago Tribune Literary Award upon Elie Wiesel, a man revered around the world as a living symbol of human rights," said Gerould Kern, editor. "Drawing upon his personal experiences as a Holocaust survivor, Mr. Wiesel's words have passionately and powerfully fought injustice and intolerance. He is a champion of the human spirit's capacity to overcome evil."

Past recipients of the Literary Prize, which was first awarded in 2002, include Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, Margaret Atwood, Tom Wolfe, Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen Sondheim.

Heartland Prizes

The Chicago Tribune also announced the winners of the 2012 Heartland Prizes for fiction and nonfiction.

Novelist and short story writer Richard Ford was awarded the Heartland Prize for fiction for his novel "Canada."  The sequel in his Bascombe series, "Independence Day," was the first novel awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner award in the same year.

Paul Hendrickson was awarded the Heartland Prize for non-fiction for "Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961."  Hendrickson was a prizewinning feature writer for the Washington Post for 20 years and now teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ford will receive his award and speak at 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11 at Thorne Auditorium (Northwestern University School of Law) in another Printers Row program also presented with the Chicago Humanities Festival.  Hendrickson will be honored in a 2 p.m. discussion that day at the Harold Washington Library. 

Kern noted, "The Chicago Tribune Literary Prize and the Heartland Awards for fiction and non-fiction reflect the Tribune's dedication to literature and the spread of ideas and enlightenment. We truly are honored to recognize the work of writers who have made such enormous contributions to our culture."

Printers Row is the Chicago Tribune's literary program.  Printers Row includes a weekly literary journal, weekly original fiction, regular author talks, the annual Printers Row Lit Fest and the Tribune Literary Prizes.

Chicago Tribune established the Heartland Prizes in 1988 to annually recognize a novel and a work of non-fiction that reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America.  The Literary and Heartland Prizes are a part of the Tribune's ongoing commitment to the written word and its support of literacy.

About Chicago Tribune Media Group:

Chicago Tribune Media Group is a media and business services company that publishes the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune. CTMG also produces related print and interactive media serving Chicagoland like RedEye, Hoy, Chicago Magazine, Naperville Magazine, TribLocal, TheMash, chicagotribune.com, chicagonow.com and metromix.com. Reaching 4.8 million adults each week in the greater Chicago area, CTMG is the leading news and  information destination in Chicagoland. 

SOURCE Chicago Tribune