Buruma Noy Holland making her way down to the podium from the top row to receive the Katherine Anne Porter Award (also from Williams) and the charming Red Pine, aka Bill Porter, accepting the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation (looking every bit the North Beach poet c. Literary highlights of this part of the ceremony included Joy Williams (in signature sunglasses) presenting an AAAL award to poet Ishion Hutchinson, who may or may not have been wearing the same red socks as Mr. Buruma was similarly honored for his foreigness.
Smith, there to be inducted as a “Foreign Honorary Member” of the Academy was seated next to Ian Buruma, new(ish) editor of The New York Review of Books, whose red socks, briefly glimpsed as he shifted through assorted introductions, were a perfect accent to Ms.
Though current (and future) academy members were assembled onstage for a class photo (and despite a church-like atmosphere soundtracked by live organ), the sartorial choices on display hinted at rather more lively thinking.Īs is the case in most rooms graced by her presence, the eye was drawn immediately to Zadie Smith, sitting front row, stage right, resplendent in a marvelous green suit, purple shirt, and red headscarf.
When one thinks of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (AAAL)-or, indeed, if one thinks of any such similarly august institution, the British Academy, say, or France’s Order of Arts and Letters-a bit of sepia enters the picture: stiff, formal portraits of dead white men in antique facial hair (mutton chops, van dykes), gathered to quietly laud the nation’s artistic traditions, of which they claim to be progenitors and caretakers both.īut one, warm sleepy afternoon last week, upon entering the Academy itself on West 155th Street, the picture was a little different.