for The Lives They Left Behind
Editorial Director, Erika Goldman and Assistant Editor, Leslie Hodgkins
The Bellevue Literary Press is pleased to announce that The Lives They Left Behind is a winner of the 2009, 11th Annual Ken Book Award, awarded by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City Metro, Inc. (NAMI-NYC).
The authors were honored for "Outstanding Contributions to Better Understanding of Mental Illness."
The Ken Book Awards are presented each spring in memory of Kenneth Johnson, the son of Patricia Warburg Cliff. Ms. Cliff founded the Kenneth Johnson Memorial Research Library in 1996. It is housed at the NAMI-NYC Metro offices and includes hundreds of books, journals and videos, and is host to book and poetry clubs.
All 2009 Ken awardees were selected based on their outstanding literary contributions to a better understanding of mental illness. Previous awardees have included Jane Pauley, Quincy Jones, Wally Lamb, Sylvia Nasser, Rick Moody, Kay Jamison, Simon Winchester, Sherwin Nuland, and Andrew Solomon.
About NAMI-NYC Metro
The National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City Metro, Inc. (NAMI-NYC Metro) is a grassroots organization that provides support, education, and advocacy for families and individuals of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who live with mental illness. As one of the largest affiliates of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI-NYC Metro works collaboratively with state and national affiliates to educate the public, advocate for legislation, reduce stigma, and improve the mental health system.
Oliver Sacks, M.D., Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center and author of Musicophilia wrote of the book:
"The Lives They Left Behind is a deeply moving testament to the human side of mental illness, and of the narrow margin which so often separates the sane from the mad. It is a remarkable portrait, too, of the life of a psychiatric asylum--the sort of community in which, for better and for worse, hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives. Darby Penney and Peter Stastny's careful historical (almost archaeological) and biographical reconstructions give us unique insight into these lives which would otherwise be lost and, indeed, unimaginable to the rest of us."
The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
By Darby Penney and Peter Stastny, with photographs by Lisa Rinzler
Price: $14.95
Trade Paperback 13-digit ISBN: 978-1-934137-14-7
Buy a copy
Contact:
Bellevue Literary Press
Department of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine
550 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Phone: 212.263.7802
Fax: 212.263.7803
Email: egoldman@blreview.org
Web: Bellevue Literary Press
