Publishing executive wins Maxwell Perkins Award

[June 27, 2013]  NEW YORK (AP) -- A publishing executive who has helped release books by such acclaimed authors as Jhumpa Lahiri, Jane Smiley and James Salter has won the Maxwell E. Perkins Award for lifetime achievement in fiction.

Robin Desser of Alfred A. Knopf is the latest recipient of a prize named for the editor of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Desser, a vice president and editorial director at Knopf, has worked on a wide range of fiction, from such acclaimed debuts as Sandra Cisneros' "The House On Mango Street" to books by established stars such as Salter and Smiley.

The Perkins award is sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Fiction. Previous winners include Nan A. Talese of Doubleday and Jonathan Galassi of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

[Associated Press]

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