Oprah Winfrey to receive honorary PEN/Faulkner award

NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey is receiving a literary honor for her championing of so many authors over the past quarter century. The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is giving Winfrey its inaugural Literary Champion award. The lifetime achievement prize is for contributions to literacy and for inspiring younger readers and writers. PEN/Faulkner is otherwise known for the annual fiction prize it has presented since 1981. Winfrey has boosted sales for dozens of authors through the book club she founded in 1996. She received an honorary National Book Award in 1999.