By Katie Linder

Gene Jarrett, dean of the faculty, and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin. 

The $30,000 prize is the largest annual cash prize for English-language literary criticism and is administered by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop on behalf of the estate of Truman Capote, who would have celebrated his 100^th birthday on Sept. 30. 

An awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber. The event will feature remarks by Jarrett and a reception in the Old Capitol Rotunda. The ceremony and reception are open to the public.

Jarrett will be honored for his third book, a comprehensive biography, titled Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, published by Princeton University Press and selected as one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2022. In the book, Jarrett tells the story of Dunbar, known to many as the “poet laureate of his race,” narrating both his successes and his struggles as he negotiated a profoundly complex era in American history. The selection committee noted the impact of Jarrett’s work: 

“What is particularly powerful in Gene Jarrett's landmark biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar is his emphasis on the cruel paradoxes of the poet's career, particularly how the standard of racial authenticity became "a cage from which escape remained impossible." Jarrett's narrative is so absorbing because it tells in novelistic detail of a personal life and literary career that verged on the tragic.”

Jarrett specializes in African American literary history from the eighteenth century to the present; U.S. literary history between the Civil War and World War II; race, ethnic, and cultural studies; and theories of literature, aesthetics, and intellectual historiography. He is a graduate of Princeton University and currently serves as dean of faculty there. 

Jarrett says he is honored to join two previous Capote Award recipients from Princeton, Susan Stewart and Elaine Showalter, who received the award in 2004 and 2012 respectively. 

"To be a part of that lineage of success is incredible,” Jarrett said. “I still remember when I decided to major in English at Princeton. I never envisioned a day would come when, as a professor at Princeton, I could regard my writing of a biography as truly well done.”

Over the past three decades, the Capote Trust has provided the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with $4.3 million to fund the prize, fellowships, and scholarships. Nationally, the trust has granted universities a combined $12.5 million to support creative writing students.

To learn more about the award and previous recipients, visit the Iowa Writers’ Workshop website. You can also learn more about Jarrett by reading an announcement on the Princeton University website.