Earlier today, over at the New Yorker‘s Book Bench blog, Jenny Hendrix alerted us to the news that the late journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been awarded PEN English’s first-ever award for literature in translation for her book, Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy. According to Hendrix, the book “is the story of a democracy in collapse, in which soldiers are slaves, judges are corrupt, and provincial oligarchs rule,” and it paints a particularly brutal portrait of Vladimir Putin. It was Russia’s war in Chechnya that ignited Politkovskaya’s fury with Putin, and her experiences there are documented in A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Centered on stories of those caught in the crossfire of the Chechen conflict, A Small Corner of Hell recounts the horrors of living in the midst of the war, examines how the war has affected Russian society, and takes a hard look at how people on both sides are profiting from it, from the guards who accept bribes from Chechens out after curfew to the United Nations. (You can read an excerpt from the book here.) The conclusion of Hendrix’s post is a moving testament to the legacy of this courageous journalist, who was . . .

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There are your everyday, humdrum grants and awards and prizes, and then there are the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius awards.” They’re special. They’re an event. It’s not just that they’re valuable, or that the money comes with no strings attached. It’s that they’re shrouded in secrecy: recipients receive a phone call out of the blue informing them that they’ve won—in other words, that, unbeknownst to them, someone has been quietly paying attention to their work and thinks it worthy. Whether an honoree is famous or obscure—and this year’s list includes both—surely there’s a moment, holding the phone, when they feel like they’ve fallen into a fairy tale? Today’s MacArthur-sponsored fairy tale features a University of Chicago Press author as one of its characters. Shannon Lee Dawdy, an anthropologist here at the University of Chicago, was honored for her work combining archaeological scholarship with historical preservation to reveal the dynamics of intellectual and social life in New Orleans from its establishment as a French colony to the present day. That research is the basis of her book Building the Devil’s Empire, a fascinating, picaresque account of the early years of New Orleans that traces the town’s development from its origins in 1718 . . .

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The saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. And that’s good advice, except when jurying a publishing design prize. So we’ll forgive AIGA, the professional association for design, and its annual list of the best book covers and designs. And, since it recognized the work of our outstanding designers at the Press, we’ll even celebrate it. Narrowed from more than 800 entries, the “AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers” is the definite list of the best book and book cover design produced in 2009. The University of Chicago Press is honored to have two of its books recognized this year. Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals and Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, both designed by Isaac Tobin (who’s been racking up accolades recently), were named to the prestigious list. Congratulations to Isaac and many thanks to AIGA for this honor! . . .

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The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has recently announced its new 2010 members. The University of Chicago Press is pleased to note that five of our authors have made the list: Eric Posner, professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School has published several books with the Press including his 2009 publication The Perils of Global Legalism and his 2001 Cost-Benefit Analysis: Economic, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives with co-editor Matthew D. Adler. His newest book co-edited with his colleague at the U of C law School, Cass R. Sunstein, engages in a fascinating study of the notion of happiness—or “hedonics”— as it relates to law and public policy. Law and Happiness brings together the best and most influential thinkers in this burgeoning field to explore the question of what makes up happiness—and what factors can be demonstrated to increase or decrease it. Marc Shell, professor of English and comparative literature at Harvard University, has dedicated much of his published work to the study of the intersection between economics and aesthetics, including his 1995 publication Art & Money—a frank, provocative, and entirely unconventional look at two worlds in tandem, focusing on what binds together and drives apart the . . .

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