Congratulations are due to UCP author, novelist, public defender, and, um, really nice dude/polymath Sergio De la Pava, who just took home the Robert W. Bingham Prize (a PEN Literary Award) for A Naked Singularity, a debut work that demonstrates “distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.” Along with the $25,000 kitty, De la Pava earns more than just renewed DIY bragging rights. From a write-up in the Wall Street Journal, which (for interested parties) engages with the book’s back story:

Mr. De La Pava, reached on his way to a speaking engagement at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Scotland, said he intends to continue his legal case-load but was grateful to be recognized by an organization with a human-rights agenda. “What I do on a daily basis is very important to me,” he said. “[PEN] has a social-justice mission, so it’s even more meaningful.”

Recently, De la Pava took to the stage at MOMA/PS 1’s Expo 1 New York, where he delivered a two-part talk on the legacy of Philip K. Dick and the future of the criminal justice system, a piece of Venn Diagram portraiture surrounding some of the larger issues at stake in A Naked Singularity. Check out the footage below + stop here for info on De la Pava’s forthcoming follow-up Personae, out this October: