"The National Book Critics Circle last night gave its prize for fiction to "Austerlitz," by W. G. Sebald, a dreamlike meditation on memory and the Holocaust, published by Random House. Mr. Sebald died in December at 57, in a car accident near his home in Norwich, England.

. . . 

The prize for criticism went to the novelist Martin Amis for "The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000," (Talk Miramax).

The annual Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing was awarded to Michael Gorra, a professor at Smith College, and the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award was given to the editor Jason Epstein. Mr. Epstein, former editorial director of Random House, has been an editor of authors like Philip Roth and Norman Mailer. He was also the founder of Anchor Press, a pioneer in high-quality paperbacks, and a co-founder of The New York Review of Books.

The awards were announced at a ceremony at the New York University Law School's Tishman Auditorium."