The University of Alabama School of Law has announced that Attica Locke’s Pleasantville has won the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.
Locke is the sixth winner of the prize. The prize, authorized by Lee, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change. Previous winners include John Grisham and Michael Connelly.
The winner was chosen by a panel consisting of Dr. Philip Beidler, author and professor of English, University of Alabama; Helen Ellis, author, “American Housewife”; Homer Hickam, author, “Rocket Boys”; Rheta Grimsley Johnson, author, journalist and syndicated columnist; and Angela Johnson, author, “Wind Flyers.
Locke will be honored with a signed special edition of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a $3,000 cash award and a feature article in the ABA Journal. The prize will be presented during a ceremony on Sept. 22, at 5:30 p.m., at the Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with the National Book Festival. Following the award presentation, the Selection Committee will convene a panel discussion of “Pleasantville,” in relationship to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
