John Grisham Wins 2011 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – For his work in The Confession, #1 best-selling author John Grisham is being awarded the 2011 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, a new literary award co-sponsored by The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal, the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association.

 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder helped initiate this award at a ceremony last September in Tuscaloosa, marking the 50^thanniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird. Author Harper Lee, who attended The University of Alabama School of Law, approved of this award.

The Harper Lee Prize will be given annually to a published work of fiction that best exemplifies the positive role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

The Confession was declared the 2011 winner by a distinguished selection committee, including David Baldacci, Linda Fairstein, Morris Dees, Robert J. Grey, Jr. and Jeffrey Toobin. In the committee’s view, The Confession, which explores an attorney’s tireless efforts to save his client from being executed for a crime he did not commit, most deservedly embodies the spirit of the Harper Lee Prize.

Grisham will be presented with the award during a special ceremony Sept. 22, at 2 p.m., at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Following the award presentation, David Baldacci will lead a discussion of The Confession, in relationship to Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, including guest panelists Morris Dees, Linda Fairstein, Robert J. Grey, Jr., Laura Miller and Thane Rosenbaum.

Harper Lee Prize Press Kit – http://www.law.ua.edu/hlp-press-kit/

Harper Lee Prize Web site – www.harperleeprize.com

About John Grisham

John Grisham is the author of twenty-two novels, one work of non-fiction, a collection of stories, and a novel for young readers. He is on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project in New York and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Innocence Project at The University of Mississippi School of Law. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi. His new novel, The Litigators, will be published by Doubleday on Oct. 25, 2011. For more information visit:www.jgrisham.com or http://www.facebook.com/JohnGrisham.