Nashville author, Parnassus Books owner Ann Patchett awarded National Humanities Medal

BY MATT MASTERS

Nashville author and Parnassus Books owner Ann Patchett has been awarded the 2021 National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden.

The March 21, 2023, ceremony took place in the East Room of the White House, with Biden quoting President George Washington who said, “The arts and sciences [are] essential to the prosperity of the State and… the ornament and happiness of human life.”

“He knew the greatness of a nation was measured not only by the strength of its army and the vastness of its geography, the size of its economy, it was also measured in the vitality of its culture — and the culture forged in the freedom of expression to speak and to think freely,” Biden told the crowd. Patchett was honored “For putting into words the beauty, pain and complexity of human nature.”

“With her best-selling novels and essays, and her bookstore, readers from around the world see themselves in the pages of Ann Patchett’s books that take people to places of the heart and feed the imagination of our nation,” the ceremony’s presenter said.

President Joe Biden presents Ann Patchett with the 2021 National Humanities Medal at a ceremony in the East Room of The White House in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

“Writers may secretly dream of literary awards, but I don’t think anyone knows enough to hope for a medal from the president. It just shows up out of the blue and is the biggest and best possible surprise,” Patchett said in an emailed statement. “The day itself was so grand, so sincere, so moving and beautiful and deeply humbling that it’s hard to put into words. Biden was thanking us for serving the country through our art, and he was also reminding us to keep going forward. I plan to live up to this in every way I can.”

The National Humanities Medal is presented in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities and “honors an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens’ engagement with history or literature, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources.”

According to Patchett’s website, the New York Times bestselling author is also the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among many others.

In 2011, Patchett and her business partner Karen Hayes opened Parnassus Books in Green Hills. In January, the bookstore celebrated the reopening of its Nashville International Airport location with the unveiling of BNA’s new Grand Lobby.

The other recipients of the 2021 National Humanities Medal include poet and author Richard Blanco; scholar and anthropologist Johnnetta Betsch Cole; biographer Walter Isaacson; social historian Earl Lewis; Native

American academic and activist Henrietta Mann; professor and activist Bryan Stevenson; authors Amy Tan, Tara Westover and Colson Whitehead; the radio show “Native America Calling”; as well as musician Sir Elton John, who was given his award in a separate ceremony in 2022.

The ceremony also included the presentation of the 2021 National Medals of Arts to 12 Americans.

The National Medal of Arts is presented in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts and serves as the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the federal government.

It is awarded to “individuals or groups who are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support, and availability of the arts in the United States.”

Those 12 recipients of the 2021 National Medals of Arts include musicians Bruce Springsteen, Gladys Knight and Jose Feliciano; businessman, philanthropist and LGBTQ rights advocate Fred Eychaner; painter Antonio Martorell-Cardona; film producer Joan Shigekawa, fashion designer Vera Wang; and two institutions, New York City’s The Billie Holiday Theatre and Washington D.C.-based The International Association of Blacks in Dance.