Journalist Anand Giridharadas has won the New York Public Library’s 2015 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Giridharadas received the honor for his work, The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, published by W.W. Norton and Company. The book chronicles the stories of two men: a white supremacist who went on a killing spree in Texas after 9/11 and a Muslim immigrant that survived the experience, and went on to help the killer survive death row. The New York Times columnist was given the award on May 26 at a ceremony at the library.
A Bernstein Selection Committee, chaired by journalist Jim Hoge, chose Giridharadas from a shortlist of five finalists. A seven-member Library Review Committee received and read more than 70 nominations from publishers for the award.