The South Asian Literary Association (an allied organization of the Modern Language Association) will be presenting its 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award to author Chitra Divakaruni for her contribution to South Asian literature. The award will be presented during the association's annual convention in December 2007 in Chicago. Random House, Inc. publishes a number of Divakaruni's books, including her forthcoming novel, The Palace of Illusions. For a complete list, click here.

President George W. Bush awarded the prestigious National Humanities Medals for 2007 to four Random House authors: Ruth R. Wisse, author of Jews and Power; Victor Davis Hanson, military historian and author; Cynthia Ozick, author; and Richard Pipes, author and historian. The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans access to important resources in the humanities.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced that Madison Smartt Bell will receive the Academy's Mildred and Harold Strauss Living fund. Madison Smartt Bell is the author of the acclaimed trilogy of novels charting the Haitian revolution of 1791–1803 (All Souls' Rising, Master of the Crossroads, and The Stone that the Builder Refused), which are all available from Vintage Books. His most recent work of non-fiction is the biography Toussaint Louverture, available from Vintage in January 2008. A bequest from Mildred and Harold Strauss in 1981 established two Strauss Living funds that provide two writers of English prose literature an annual stipend of $50,000 for a period of five years to enable them to devote their time exclusively to writing.