J M Coetzee

Rebels old and young were honored this year by the National Book Critics Circle, which announced its awards nominees Monday. Ninety-one-year-old Studs Terkel, the oral historian and self-described champion of the "uncelebrated," will receive a lifetime achievement prize. And competitive nominations went to two books released by McSweeney's, an irreverent publishing house founded by bestselling author Dave Eggers.

Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi accepted her Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday with a warning that civil liberties and human rights must not be allowed to fall prey to the "war on terrorism" launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Ebadi, the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to win the award, said that even Western democracies have allowed their traditions of freedom and basic rights to be eroded. "Regulations restricting human rights and basic freedoms ...

It's a big day for prize announcements: The Literature Prize announced its formation and sponsor Wednesday at a news conference at the British Library in London. The idea for the prize came into being when a group of British intellectuals took umbrage at the direction they saw the Booker Prize taking -- they saw it leaning toward popular fiction rather than literary fiction. If only we in America got quite so worked up over big literary prizes not being literary enough. Born of intellectual frustration, the Literature Prize is no small potatoes: The prize is about $60,000.