Robert Caro, whose towering series of books The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a milestone in political journalism, will receive the National Book Award's lifetime achievement award for "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters," in November, The Associated Press reports. Caro has already won a competitive National Book Award and two Pulitzer Prizes for the series, which comprises four books, released in 1982, 1990, 2002, and 2012. His first book, a definitive biography of the controversial city planner Robert Moses called The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, also won a Pulitzer.
"Caro's in-depth and long-term exploration of the lives of two prominent men makes a much larger contribution to American Letters than it might seem at first glance," Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation, said in a statement. "His life's work, and his stunning prose, teaches us to better understand political influence, American democracy, and the true power of biography."
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