Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, said that Ford was “our Babe Ruth of novelists” and it is not surprising. He is American, deeply humane, meticulous in craft, daring on field, and has a great record of hitting the ball consistently. “We are proud of conferring the Library’s lifetime award for fiction upon this luminous storyteller — one of the most eloquent authors of his generation.” Ford will return to Mississippi Book Festival on August 17, two weeks before receiving the Library of Congress award. Ford has previously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1995), PEN/Faulkner Award (1995), and the PEN/Malamud Award (192001), among other prestigious literary awards. In 2015, he was again a finalist in the Pulitzer Prize. Ford replied to Mississippi Today via email, saying that he couldn’t give the Library of Congress prize any rank among his other recognitions. Ford wrote, “On the other hand, I’m fortunate still to be writing novels at 75.” This selection is an encouragement for me, even though I’m lucky. Sure, winning a prize is an exception to the rule in a writer’s world – which is one of many interesting and easy days spent more or less alone. Every prize I win makes me think that there must have been an error. “It is very nice that we live in a country with a national library. This library values the imaginative arts, which is in sharp contrast to much of the nonsense, idiocy, and other things that are passed on to the ‘public good. Libraries are indestructible instruments of the public benefit.” Ford was born in Jackson and graduated Murrah High School. He received degrees from Michigan State University and University of California-Irvine. There, he was taught by E.L. Doctorow, 2014 Library of Congress Award for American Fiction Winner. Ford’s books are available in 35 languages. They include seven novels, three short stories collections and a memoir. His 1995 novel, “Independence Day”, was the first to be awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Ford’s work certainly places him among Mississippi’s elite group of internationally acclaimed novelists. Eudora Welty and William Faulkner were neighbors of Ford in Belhaven when he was growing up. Ford answered that he didn’t know why Mississippi produced so many world-renowned writers despite being a relatively small state. We don’t want to know more about them ….well. “But, if we do, if Mississippi produces an uncommon number of writers, it could be because Mississippi has so many things about itself that require explaining and reconciling with the rest of the globe. That’s difficult to understand and make sense. Our past. Our future. Growing up in Mississippi, I had a strong sense for the absurdities of life. Racism, which was the dominant moral and human force in my youth, is, at its core – absurd. Absurdity is a mismatch of facts. These mismatches should be reconciled in life, but it doesn’t work out that way in Mississippi. One resorts to alternative modes of thinking and expression to reconcile the differences – or at least try to. Ford, now 75, continues to produce. Ford will publish a book of short stories, “Sorry for your Troubles,” in spring 2020. He is currently working on “Be Mine,” a novel.