NEW YORK (AP) — A literary honor will now carry the name of a uniquely successful author: the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir.
On Wednesday, Penguin Random House announced the retitling of the prize in its decades-old Creative Writing Awards program, which also includes categories named for Amanda Gorman (poetry) and Maya Angelou (spoken word). Each year, the Obama prize will provide a $10,000 college scholarship to a high school senior in public school, based on an autobiographical English-language composition.
Obama’s memoir “Becoming” was published in 2018 and has sold more than 17 million copies worldwide, by far the most popular book by a modern White House resident. The former first lady’s next book, “The Light We Carry,” comes out next month.
“I know firsthand how nerve-wracking it can be to share the most intimate stories from your life with the world,” Obama said in a statement released by Penguin Random House.