Book on Chornobyl nuclear accident wins $5,000 prize

NEW YORK – Adam Higginbotham’s “Midnight in Chornobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” has won a $5,000 prize.

Higginbotham has received the William E. Colby Award, given for an outstanding book on military or intelligence history. The award, announced Monday, is named for the late CIA director. It’s presented by Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, and sponsored in part by the Chicago-based Pritzker Military Foundation.

The Colby award was established in 1999. Previous winners include Karl Marlantes’ novel “Matterhorn” and Dexter Filkins’ “The Forever War.”

Colby was CIA director during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Earlier this year, “Midnight in Chornobyl” won the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.