In Dayton, Ohio, words brokered a Peace Accord, ending the violence in the Balkans and saving thousands of lives. In that same spirit, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize (DLPP) is dedicated to supporting those who write, publish, read, and share books that advance peace. Our criteria focus on the subject of peace, broadly defined as increasing harmony and understanding between and among people, addressing peace as it applies to individuals, families, communities, nations, ethnic groups, cultures, and religions.

Over eleven years, we have honored established and emerging writers representing seventeen countries whose books have settings and characters from around the globe. Writer after writer has remarked that through literature, readers experience the empathy that can shift the tide from violence, aggression, fear, intolerance, injustice, and the love of power that lead to war, to tolerance and understanding that lead to peace. Barbara Kingsolver described empathy as developing “like a muscle—it strengthens with use.” It is through literature that we realize our shared humanity, a realization essential to any genuine pursuit of peace.

For the DLPP, the awards ceremony is not the end, it is the beginning of our goal of creating the opportunities for writers to share their works through visits to schools, colleges and universities, book clubs, libraries, our Author Series, our website, and social media outreach. The books must be read to be a part of the change we seek. Knowing that readers have been changed by books, it is not such a large step to think that the world could be changed as well. The writers we have honored have fine-tuned our sense of what is acceptable, and more importantly, what is not acceptable.
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