Denis Johnson, Tobias Wolff to enter arts academy
NEW YORK (AP) — Fiction writers Denis Johnson, Ha Jin and Tobias Wolff are among this year's inductees into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Others voted in include fiction writer-essayist Wendell Berry, composers David Lang and Alvin Singleton, photographer Robert Adams and artists Ann Hamilton and Bill Jensen.
Cookbook author and restaurateur Alice Waters will become an American honorary member, the academy said Thursday. Foreign honorary members include novelists Haruki Murakami, Colm Toibin and John Banville, architect Toyo Ito, expressionist painter Leon Kossoff and composer-pianist Magnus Lindberg.
The academy, founded in 1898, is an honor society with a core membership of 250 writers, musicians and artists.
Inductees are voted in by current members, who range from Toni Morrison to Stephen Sondheim. They formally join the academy at a ceremony in May, when the keynote speech, called the Blashfield Address, will be given by critic and Harvard University professor Elaine Scarry.
Previous keynoters have included Helen Keller, Robert Frost and Edward Albee.
