A new journalism prize worth $50,000 will go to:

… an author or journalist whose work reflects a commitment to free expression and inquiry,‭ ‬a range and depth of intellect,‭ ‬and a willingness to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence.

Fittingly, it will be named after Christopher Hitchens, who never shied away from controversial topics and who didn’t give a damn what you thought about it.

Nominations — welcome through April 13, 2015 — should be sent to hitchensprize@dvrf.org, and should include the nominee’s name, a brief statement of their qualifications, and citations of their published work. The submission date was chosen in honor of what would have been Hitchens’ 66th birthday.

Nice touch. The judges will include colleagues from Vanity Fair and his circle of literary peers:

“Were Christopher not the author of the imperishable God Is Not Great,” says [writer Christopher] Buckley, “I would be sorely tempted to say that he must be smiling in heaven. Certainly he will have the recipients of future Hitchens Prizes smiling down here on earth.”

(Image via Wikipedia)



