Sonia Sanchez wins $250,000 prize for lifetime achievement

NEW YORK (AP) — Poet, educator and activist Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $250,000 lifetime achievement honor previously given to Chinua Achebe, Bob Dylan and Maya Lin among others. Established in 1994 through the estate of Lillian Gish, the silent film star and sister of fellow actor Dorothy Gish, the prize is awarded for an artist who has challenged artistic and social boundaries. Sanchez, 87, has been widely cited as an innovative poet and as a pioneer in the teaching of Black studies. Her collected poems came out this spring.