Philip Roth Wins Saul Bellow Prize

Philip Roth is to be named today the winner of the first PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, The Associated Press reported. The $40,000 prize, to be given every two years, honors a “distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or her in the highest rank of American literature.” Mr. Roth, 74, whose novels include “Portnoy’s Complaint” and “American Pastoral,” is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle prize. He is a three-time winner of the PEN/Faulkner prize, most recently for his novel “Everyman,” inspired in part by the death of Bellow (1915-2005), whose novels included “The Adventures of Augie March,” “Henderson the Rain King” and “Herzog.” Mr. Roth, who described “Augie March” as “the most important book published in English in the second half of the 20th century,” said, “How could I be anything but thrilled to receive an award bearing Saul Bellow’s name?”

‘Blades of Glory’ Cuts a Fine Figure

Two new films captured the top spots at North American box offices over the weekend. “Blades of Glory” (Paramount), the ice-skating comedy starring Will Ferrell, and Jon Heder, took in $33 million to become No. 1 in the rankings. Second place went to “Meet the Robinsons” (Buena Vista), the 3-D computer-animated Disney film about a bespectacled orphan, with $25 million, according to estimates from the box-office tracking company Media by Numbers. As a result last week’s second-place finisher, the sword-and-sandals epic “300” (Warner Brothers), dropped to third place on a haul of $11.1 million, but its four-week take swelled to $179.6 million. Last week’s No. 1 film, “TMNT,” the adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, also from Warner Brothers, fell to fourth place, with $9.1 million, a decline of 62 percent. Fifth place went to the motorcycling comedy “Wild Hogs” (Buena Vista), with $8.3 million for a five-week total of $135.3 million.

Glastonbury Tickets Fly

In 1 hour 45 minutes yesterday the 137,500 tickets available to the public for this year’s Glastonbury Festival, Britain’s biggest open-air music event, were snapped up, the BBC reported. Last week the Mendip District Council in Somerset, England, approved a four-year extension of the festival’s license that will increase its capacity to 177,500. Among those scheduled to perform at this year’s festival, from June 22 to 24, are the Arctic Monkeys, the Who and Shirley Bassey, but the full lineup will not be announced until June.

Gromit Sidelines Nipper

Nipper, the mixed-breed terrier that has been cocking his head over a gramophone speaker for more than a century, is about to be given a bit of a respite. The canine model that became the visible symbol of recording brands including RCA and HMV is being given a partial rest by HMV, the BBC reported. To support the promotion of children’s DVDs at its stores, HMV will replace Nipper for three months with Gromit, the expressive and clever animated sidekick of the absent-minded inventor and cheese lover Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit films. But assurances were given that Nipper is not being sent out to the canine equivalent of pasture and will still represent HMV in other capacities requiring a logo. Nipper, who died in 1895, was immortalized three years later in a painting by his owner, Francis Barraud. In 1898 the Gramophone Company, now EMI, acquired the painting for £100, and Nipper first appeared on the HMV label in 1907.

Comedy Makes a Splash

“Room Service” was a bit slow on Saturday night at the SoHo Playhouse. That’s because the Fire Department, not normally part of the cast of this 1930s comedy, had a role to play. “Room Service,” about a Broadway producer trying to save his show and prevent his cast from being evicted from a hotel during rehearsals, was in its second act when strange noises began to emerge from pipes in a backstage hallway. Before long the noises had become rumblings and clangings. Vibrations could be felt onstage, a spokesman said. Investigation revealed that the pipes had burst, the downstairs lounge was flooded, and the water needed to be shut off at once. That stopped the show. Exit the audience. Enter the Fire Department to check the situation. Officials gave the O.K., and in the grand tradition of theater, the show went on.

Divorce Settlement for Britney Spears

The pop star Britney Spears, 25, and her husband, the former backup dancer Kevin Federline, 29, both above, have reached a divorce settlement, a spokesman for his lawyer said, Reuters reported. Terms were not disclosed, but a statement issued by Michael Sands, the spokesman, said, “The parties signed an agreement which was a global settlement on all issues of their marriage and child custody.” The agreement is subject to final approval by a judge. The couple, who married in September 2004 and separated last year, are the parents of two sons, Sean Preston, 18 months, and Jayden James, 6 months.

Nadine Gordimer Awarded French Legion of Honor

The South African novelist and 1991 Nobel laureate in literature Nadine Gordimer was awarded the French Legion of Honor in ceremonies yesterday at the French Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Agence France-Presse reported. “By making you an officer of the Legion of Honor, we also wish to pay tribute to a symbolic figure of the fight against apartheid,” the French ambassador, Denis Pietton, told her. “Your work, deeply marked by the situation in South Africa, remains universal.” Three of Ms. Gordimer’s 15 novels were banned by the apartheid regime, which ended in 1994.

Footnotes

The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Edward Albee will announce the winner of the inaugural Yale Drama Series competition in a ceremony on April 26 at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center. The annual award will go to an emerging playwright from the United States, Canada, Britain or Ireland for an original full-length play written in English and not previously published or produced. The winner of the contest receives the David C. Horn Prize of $10,000, publication of the prize manuscript by the Yale University Press and a staged reading at Yale Rep. ... The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec has been named artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He will introduce new works and lead the institute’s annual concert series in a term beginning on July 1.