Alumni News, Awards and Honors, Faculty News

Two Faculty Members, Alumna Earn 2013 Guggenheim Fellowships

Visual arts faculty member Ann Pibal, MFA faculty member Major Jackson, and alumna Kiran Desai ’93 are among the 175 artists, scholars, and scientists—out of nearly 3,000 applicants—to receive 2013 Guggenheim Fellowships.

Guggenheim Fellowship logo

Ann Pibal’s abstract paintings have been exhibited widely at venues in the United States and Europe (including, currently, at the Steven Zevitas Gallery in Boston). Her work is displayed in many public collections, including The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and the Yale University Art Gallery. She has received awards from the Tiffany Foundation, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Pollock Krasner Foundation, and others.

Major Jackson is the author of three poetry collections: Holding CompanyHoops; and Leaving Saturn, which was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has published poems and essays in AGNIAmerican Poetry ReviewThe New YorkerThe New York Times Book ReviewPoetryTin House, and other periodicals. His poetry has been included in Best American Poetry and Best of the Best American Poetry. Jackson is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers' Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation.

Kiran Desai ’93 is the author of two novels, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, which won the Betty Trask Prize in 1998, and The Inheritance of Loss, which won the Man Booker in 2006, making her the youngest woman ever to win the prize. It was also awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and was included in the Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, New York Times Notable Books of the Year and ALA Notable Books of the Year. It was translated into over thirty-five languages. Her essays have appeared in various publications, including the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Guardian, Gourmet, Travel and Leisure, Best American Travel Writing, and Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table. In 2009, she was presented with the Columbia University Medal for Excellence.

For more on this year’s Guggenheim recipients, see the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's website.