The National Book Critics Circle Awards presented its annual awards. Each year, they award prizes to books in five categories: Biography and Autobiography, Anne Fadiman won in General Nonfiction for her book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down; Jeffrey Tobin won in Biography and Autobiography for his book Ernie Pyle's War; Fiction; Charles Wright won in Poetry for his book Black Zodiac; and Penelope Fitzgerald won in absentia in Fiction for her book The Blue Flower; and Mario Vargas Llosa won in absentia in Criticism for his book Making Waves. At the same ceremony, critic Leslie Fiedler received the Ivan Sandrof Award for Contributions to American Arts and Letters and Thomas Mallon received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.