Announcing the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winners

The Los Angeles Times has named the winners of its annual book prizes.

By Los Angeles Times Staff

April 19, 2013 9:30 PM PT

Ben Fountain’s satire “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” was named the winner of the L.A. Times 2012 book prize for fiction on Friday night at a ceremony in Los Angeles. Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” took the prize in the current interest category.

The complete list of winners:

--Biography: Robert Caro, “The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson” (Knopf)

--Current Interest: Katherine Boo, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” (Random House)

--Fiction: Ben Fountain, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (HarperCollins Publishers / Ecco)

--The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Maggie Shipstead, “Seating Arrangements” (Knopf)

--Graphic Novel/Comics: Sammy Harkham, “Everything Together: Collected Stories” (PictureBox)

--History: Fergus M. Bordewich, “America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union” (Simon & Schuster)

--Mystery/Thriller: Tana French, “Broken Harbor” (Viking)

--Poetry: Louise Glück, “Poems 1962-2012” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

--Science & Technology: Florence Williams, “Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History” (W.W. Norton & Company)

--Young Adult Literature: A.S. King, “Ask the Passengers” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Previously announced:

--Innovator’s Award: Margaret Atwood

--Robert Kirsch Award: Kevin Starr

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