David Simon, Yiyun Li, and Annette Gordon-Reed Awarded $500,000 Genius Grants

Today the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation celebrated 23 creative individuals who will receive one of the Foundation’s annual $500,000 awards–the famous “genius grants.”

Three writers were included among the winners: author and historian Annette Gordon-Reed, fiction author Yiyun Li (pictured, via), author and The Wire producer David Simon.

Here’s more about why the foundation picked Simon: “With the nuance and scope of novels, Simon’s recent series have explored the constraints that poverty, corruption, and broken social systems place on the lives of a compelling cast of characters, each vividly realized with complicated motives, frailties, and strengths.”

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