Praise for Mary Doria Russell and her work:
Russell’s first novel, The Sparrow (1996), was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Entertainment Weekly and won the Arthur C. Clarke Prize, the British Science Fiction for Best Novel in 1998. The sequel, Children of God (1998), won the Friends of the Library USA Reader’s Choice Award. and was nominated for the Hugo Award, Best Novel in 1999.
The San Francisco Chronicle called A Thread of Grace (2005) “hauntingly beautiful.” The surprising story of Jewish survival in Nazi-occupied Italy, the novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Dreamers of the Day (2008) is about 1921 Cairo Peace Conference when Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell and Lawrence of Arabia invented the modern Middle East. Nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was praised for its accuracy and fairness in both Turkey and Israel.
Doc, her 2011 fictional biography of Doc Holliday, was one of the Washington Post‘s three best novels of the year and the American Library Association’s Best Historical Novel. Its follow-on, Epitaph, examines the way the gunfight at the O.K. Corral became central to American mythology about the Old West. Epitaph was also on the Washington Post‘s 2015 list for best fiction of the year.
The Women of the Copper Country, the story of the 1913 strike in Calumet, Michigan, has been named an Upper Peninsula Notable Book, a Michigan Notable Book, and has been selected as the 2021-22 Great Michigan Read by Michigan Humanities.
Awards
The Sparrow
2001 Winner, Kurd Lasswitz Preis (German Nebula)
2001 Winner, Spectrum Classics, Hall of Fame
1998 Winner, John W. Campbell Award for the Best New Writer in Science Fiction
1997 Winner, Arthur C. Clarke Prize, Best Novel
1997 Winner, British Science Fiction Association, Best Novel
1997 Winner, James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Prize
Children of God
2001 Winner, Spectrum Classics, Hall of Fame
1999 Winner, American Library Association Readers Choice Award
1998 Winner, The Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature
Doc
2011 Winner. Great Lakes Great Reads (Fiction)
2011 Winner, American Library Association Best Novel, Historical Fiction
2015 Best Fiction of the Year List: Washington Post
Epitaph
2015 Best Fiction of the Year Lists: Washington Post, Seattle Times, Chicago Public Library
2015 Best Historical Western Novel: True West Magazine
2015 Best Historical Western Novelist: True West Magazine
2016 Ohioana Best Fiction Award and Readers’ Choice Award
Honors
2008 COSE Arts Business and Innovation Award
Finalist
2005 Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement
Finalist, Writing category
Asteroid (12374) 194JG9 named “Rakhat” in tribute to The Sparrow
by its discoverer C.P. de Saint-Aignan at Palomar.
LeMoyne College, Syracuse NY
2000 Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters
Crain’s Cleveland Business
Woman of Influence 2000