NY Public Library Honors Scorsese

NEW YORK — Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese has won yet another laurel.

Along with three others, he has been named a Library Lion by the New York Public Library.

Scorsese, a native New Yorker who grew up in Little Italy and won his first Oscar last year for "The Departed," was honored Monday along with historian John Hope Franklin, author Jhumpa Lahiri and playwright Tom Stoppard.

"Library Lions honorees were chosen for their exceptional contributions to scholarship, literature, science, history and the visual and performing arts," library president Paul LeClerc said.

Franklin, a professor emeritus of history at Duke University and former chairman of the Department of History at the University of Chicago, is best known for his book, "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans" and "Reconstruction After the Civil War." He is a past winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Lahiri won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for "Interpreter of Maladies." Her 2004 novel "The Namesake" was recently made into a movie. She was born in London and lives in Brooklyn.

Stoppard is a prolific playwright whose "The Coast of Utopia" won seven Tony Awards this year, including for best play. His latest play, "Rock 'n' Roll" just opened on Broadway.

The Library Lions award was first given out in 1997.

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