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Rob Franklin named recipient of 19th Annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence
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BATON ROUGE — Author Rob Franklin has been awarded the 19th annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for his novel Great Black Hope, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation announced Thursday.
Franklin accepted the honor at a ceremony held at the Manship Theatre, where he appeared alongside WBRZ's Sylvia Weatherspoon to celebrate the achievement.
Established to pay homage to the legacy of renowned storyteller and Louisiana native Ernest J. Gaines, the national literary award honors emerging African American fiction writers. Along with the recognition, Franklin received a $15,000 cash prize and will collaborate with the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to engage and inspire young writers.
Franklin explained that Great Black Hope examines how broad systemic pressures affect everyday personal connections.
"It's a novel that's about how our intimate relationships—or our romantic relationships, or friendships, or family relationships—can be kind of pressure tested by these larger systems," Franklin said. "One of the things I wanted to look at was how that impacts us on an intimate, person-to-person level."
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