Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers win 2017 Sandburg Literary Awards

Best-selling authors Margaret Atwood and Dave Eggers are the recipients of the 2017 Carl Sandburg Literary Awards for excellence, it was announced today. In addition, WBEZ reporter Natalie Y. Moore will be honored with the 21st Century Award for outstanding recent achievement.

Atwood’s work includes the bestsellers “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the “MaddAddam” trilogy and “The Blind Assassin.” Eggers is best-known for his works “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” “Zeitoun,” and “The Circle.” Moore has written several books including “The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation,” which was awarded the 2016 Chicago Review of Books for nonfiction, “The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang” and “Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation.” Moore’s acclaimed reporting has included coverage of such issues as race, economic development, food injustice and violence on Chicago’s South Side. She also writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

The three authors will be honored at the annual Sandburg Literary Awards dinner on Oct. 11 at The Forum (725 W. Roosevelt). The dinner is an annual fundraiser produced by the Chicago Public Library Foundation and Chicago Public Library to raise funds in support of key learning initiatives in all 80 Chicago Public Library locations.