THE PETER MATTHIESSEN LITERARY PRIZE

The Peter Matthiessen Literary Prize will recognize the work of writers who are actively engaged in helping solve the most pressing problems facing humankind and our planet. The award will promote awareness of our integral relationship to the natural world and to one another and the importance of being part of a global movement to heal the planet and ourselves. It will champion the work of authors whose writing is both eloquent and urgent, and offers us a way to engage with the existential crisis that we face.

The idea for the Prize evolved from our initial goal to establish a writers retreat at the beautiful property on the East End of Long Island NY where the author lived and worked for the better part of his life. While we continue to pursue this goal, we envision that the Peter Matthiessen Literary Prize will further our mission of preserving and building upon Peter’s legacy. He was not only a great writer, but also a social and environmental activist who sought to raise our consciousness and encourage our compassion for other peoples and all forms of life. 

For over five decades Peter Matthiessen resided on a serene six-acre property, a quarter mile from the Atlantic Ocean in Sagaponack, New York. By keeping much of his land unmanicured and wild he created a small sanctuary for local and migrating birds and other wildlife. It was here that he wrote nearly all his opus, over thirty distinguished works of fiction and non-fiction. He wrote, often in longhand, in a modest studio fifty yards from his house. He transformed an old stable on the property into a zendo (a Zen meditation hall) and, as Muryo Roshi, became the beloved teacher to the local Zen community.

When Matthiessen first arrived on the East End in the 1950s, the area was populated largely by traditional fishermen and farmers. Only a few other writers and artists like Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner, attracted by the remote beauty and luminous skies, had yet arrived and settled. Matthiessen supplemented his early writing career by working as a charter boat captain, and in this way came to admire the courage and self-sufficiency of the local commercial fishermen, whose traditional way of life he masterfully portrayed in Men’s Lives.

Peter Matthiessen is the only American writer to win the National Book Award in both fiction and non-fiction. He was a man of many dimensions, and he brought an unusual array of gifts to his writing. He loved nature, traveled to the most remote regions of the Earth, and was a supremely knowledgeable observer of the world’s flora and fauna. This is evident in the large number of travel and natural history books he published over the years, such as The Birds of Heaven, African Silences and The Tree Where Man Was Born. In 1959, three years before the publication of Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring, Matthiessen wrote Wildlife in America in which he mourned the extinction of so many of our young nation’s animal species. In his non-fiction, he brought a poet’s sensibility to his descriptions of people and places. Yet he was also an accomplished novelist with deep empathy for Indigenous and marginalized people everywhere: from those portrayed in his Caribbean masterpiece Far Tortuga, to Shadow Country, for which he won the National Book Award in fiction. The legend of Edgar Watson in Shadow Country has been called “the story in miniature of the Western frontier,” an examination of the greed and lawlessness with which our forefathers plundered the Everglades and virgin Gulf coast of Florida. His instinctive compassion for the oppressed extended across genres. In his book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Matthiessen wrote an in-depth account of the U.S. government’s imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, which amounted to a spirited and scorching defense of Indigenous rights in America.

In the years since Peter’s death, it is increasingly clear that he was not only one of America’s great writers, but also a prescient voice testifying against the danger of our current human condition, so influenced by our estrangement from nature. His was an activist’s voice, a naturalist’s call to action, which he communicated with a journalist’s determination to provide us with the facts to support his vision. Yet, however foreboding his warnings were, he never allowed them to become despairing or nihilistic.

In 1973, still grieving over the death of his wife, Deborah Love, the year before, Matthiessen set out on an expedition to the Himalayas with the biologist George Schaller. The purpose of the trip was to chronical Schaller’s study of the mating habits of blue sheep with the hope of catching a glimpse of the elusive snow leopard. But for the author this journey became a meditation on death, loss, and spirituality that brought him deeper into the Zen Buddhism that Deborah had first introduced him to. The resulting book, The Snow Leopard, for which he received the first of his National Book Awards (in non-fiction and contemporary thought) is one of his most celebrated works. It was also a pivotal moment in his life, which added a crucial dimension–an interior depth–to his writing. In Nine-Headed Dragon River (Zen Journals 1969-1982), Are We There Yet? and Zen and the Writing Life, he makes this inspiration explicit. His final novel, In Paradise, which was based on real-life events, involves a multi-denominational group of religious people who gather to meditate and bear witness at a former Nazi death camp, to contemplate the legacy of evil and offer prayers for our redemption.

Over the last three years the Peter Matthiessen Center has secured much of the capital needed to re-acquire the Matthiessen property and to organize a successful series of live events and online programs celebrating Matthiessen’s work. Now, after obtaining 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, we are working to establish the Prize, intended to encourage and support a new generation of writers inspired by the legacy of a great author, naturalist, activist, and teacher.

HOW WOULD THE PRIZE WORK?

Peter Matthiessen was prolific in both fiction and non-fiction, so the Prize will be awarded biennially to authors in each category–i.e., an annual prize offered in fiction one year and non-fiction the next, alternating each year. In that way, the Prize committee will look back over the previous two years to consider the published works of nominees in each category to then forward to the panel of judges.

In terms of existing literary prizes, the Henry David Thoreau prize, established in 2010 and awarded annually to a writer “demonstrating excellence in nature writing,” covers the most similar ground. Previous winners include Gretel Ehrlich, E.O. Wilson, Gary Snyder, Jane Goodall, T.C. Boyle and, in 2013, Peter Matthiessen himself. However, the Peter Matthiessen Literary Prize is not intended to award an author’s cumulative output. Instead the Prize will focus on a single work, with the reputation and experience of the writer being secondary to the quality of the writing and its relevance to our current situation and global challenges. 

WHO WOULD JUDGE THE CANDIDATES FOR THE PRIZE?

A key element of our strategy is to find prestigious as well as high-profile individuals from different backgrounds to include on our panel of judges. A nominating committee will solicit submissions from a broad range of publishers and critics. The judges will review a short list of books selected by the committee. The caliber of judges is critical as it will increase the profile of the Prize and the impact of the book chosen.

WHEN WILL THE FIRST PRIZE BE AWARDED?

We hope to be well on our way in 2024 and to announce the first Peter Matthiessen Literary Prize winner no later than spring 2025, to coincide with the publication of a major biography of the author, as well as the reprinting or new editions of many of his books.

NEXT STEPS:

As we undertake a review of the whole field of literary prizes, especially in the USA, we hope to connect with those of you who can help us refine our objectives and avoid obvious pitfalls. We have already gathered a core of interested supporters of the PMC and institutional leaders in the literary world who have expressed enthusiasm for the Peter Matthiessen Literary Prize–friends who share Peter’s vision for a more conscious and compassionate world.

We hope you will join us in this exciting and worthwhile endeavor!