Unitarian Universalists to Honor Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author April 22, 7:30 p.m.
April 17, 2007
The Unitarian Universalist Association’s 2007 Melcher Book Award will be presented to Debby Applegate for her book, The Most Famous Man in America, a biography of the celebrated and controversial minister and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. The book was recently awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for best biography.
“Henry Ward Beecher is one of the great preachers of the American experience, and a rich source still for American religious thought,” the Melcher Book Award Committee wrote, announcing this year’s winner. “Only when we understand what happened to American theology in his lifetime, and the leading role he played in it, will we understand the challenging religious situation in which we now live.”
The award ceremony, followed by a reading and a question-and-answer session with the author, will be hosted by the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, located on Church Street in the heart of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass.
The event, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is free and open to the public, and members of the media are invited to attend. The Cambridge Forum, a long-running public affairs program on public radio, will audiotape the event for future re-broadcast. Applegate will also sign copies of her book at the program’s conclusion.
In Applegate’s words, the biography tells the riveting story of the person Abraham Lincoln called “the most famous man in America” — who became the nineteenth century’s most famous preacher, until he was accused of seducing his best friend’s wife.
Applegate said it felt ironic that the story of Henry Ward Beecher – whose own father had led the anti-Unitarian movement two centuries ago – should be honored with the UUA’s literary prize.
“I am just honored, and surprised, and delighted,” Applegate said.
Established in 1964, the Frederic G. Melcher Book Award is given annually by the UUA to a work published in the United States during the past calendar year judged to be the most significant contribution to religious liberalism. Previous recipients include Marilynne Robinson, James Carroll, Richard Rodriguez, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Day and Joseph Campbell.
For more information contact info @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
