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The National Book Foundation will present Stephen King with its 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The medal was created in 1988 to honor an American author who has enriched the literary landscape through a lifetime of service or body of work. The award will be presented at the National Book Awards ceremony on November 19th at which Walter Mosley will be the host and where King will give a keynote speech. Past recipients include Philip Roth, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, John Updike, Toni Morrison, Clifton Fadiman, Studs Terkel, Oprah Winfrey, Jason Epstein and Ray Bradbury.
The prize, worth $10,000, was announced by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the awards. "This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in my career as a writer since the sale of my first book in 1973," King said in a statement issued by the foundation. "I'll return the cash award to the National Book Foundation for the support of their many educational and literary outreach programs for children and youth across the country; the Medal I will keep and treasure for the rest of my life." King, who turned 56 in September, will be presented the award at the annual National Book Awards ceremony, on Nov. 19. Among the world's most famous authors, he has bom enjoyed the benefits and endured the biases of being a "genre" writer. He is a beloved storyteller among the general reading public, with dozens of bestselling novels to his credit. His biggest honor before this award was an O. Henry prize in 1996 for the short story The Man in the Black Suit, originally published in The New Yorker. Last year the critic John Leonard wrote a lengthy appreciation of Mr....