American Book Awards

Last updated

American Book Awards
Date1978–present
CountryUnited States
Hosted by Before Columbus Foundation
Website beforecolumbusfoundation.com

The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "there are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers." [1]

Contents

The Award is administered by the multi-cultural focused nonprofit Before Columbus Foundation, which established it in 1978 and inaugurated it in 1980. [2] [3] The Award honors excellence in American literature without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre. [4] Previous winners include novelists, social scientists, philosophers, poets, and historians such as Toni Morrison, Edward Said, MacKenzie Bezos, Isabel Allende, bell hooks, Don DeLillo, Derrick Bell, Robin Kelley, Joy Harjo and Tommy J. Curry.

National Book Awards

In 1980, the unrelated National Book Awards was renamed American Book Awards. In 1987 it was renamed back to National Book Awards. [5] Other than having the same name during this seven-year period, the two awards have no relation.

Recipients

1980s

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990s

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000s

2000

2001

2002 [8]

2003 [8]

2004 [8]

2005 [8]

2006 [8]

2007

2008 [7]

2009

2010s

2010 [7]

2011 [9]

2012 [7]

2013 [10]

2014 [11]

  • Andrew Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, Metropolitan Books
  • Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Black Against Empire; The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, University of California Press
  • Juan Delgado (poetry) and Thomas McGovern (photography), Vital Signs, Heyday Books
  • Alex Espinoza, The Five Acts of Diego León, Random House [12]
  • Jonathan Scott Holloway, Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940, University of North Carolina Press
  • Joan Naviyuk Kane, Hyperboreal, University of Pittsburgh Press
  • Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Tanya Olson, Boyishly, YesYes Books
  • Sterling D. Plumpp, Home/Bass, Third World Press
  • Emily Raboteau, Searching For Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Jerome Rothenberg with Heriberto Yepez, Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader, Commonwealth Books
  • Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, Metropolitan Books
  • Margaret Wrinkle, Wash, Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Koon Woon, Water Chasing Water, Kaya Press
  • Armond White, Anti-Censorship Award
  • Michael Parenti, Lifetime Achievement

2015 [13]

2016 [14]

2017 [15]

2018 [16]

2019 [17]

2020s

2020 [18]

Author(s)TitlePublisher
Reginald Dwayne Betts Felon: PoemsW.W. Norton
Sara Borjas Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a CliffNoemi Press
Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye, Tate Swindell (editors)Collected Poems of Bob KaufmanCity Lights
Staceyann Chin Crossfire: A Litany for SurvivalHaymarket
Kali Fajardo-Anstine Sabrina & Corina: StoriesOne World
Tara FickleThe Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model MinoritiesNew York University Press
Erika Lee America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United StatesBasic Books
Yoko Ogawa The Memory Police Pantheon
Jake SkeetsEyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of FlowersMilkweed Editions
George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony BeckerThey Called Us EnemyTop Shelf Productions
Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Penguin
De'Shawn Charles WinslowIn West MillsBloomsbury Publishing
Albert Woodfox with Leslie GeorgeSolitary: My Story of Transformation and HopeGrove Press
Eleanor W. Traylor Lifetime Achievement Award
Kofi NatambuEditor Award: The Panopticon Review
Jasper Bernes, Joshua Clover, and Juliana SpahrPublisher Award: Commune Editions
Amalia Leticia OrtizOral Literature Award
Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll (editors)Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy

2021 [19]

Author(s)TitlePublisher
Ayad Akhtar Homeland Elegies Little, Brown & Co.
Maisy CardThese Ghosts Are FamilySimon & Schuster
Anthony CodyBorderland ApocryphaOmnidawn Press
Ben Ehrenreich Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of TimeCounterpoint
Johanna FernándezThe Young Lords: A Radical HistoryUniversity of North Carolina Press
Carolyn Forché In the Lateness of the World: PoemsPenguin Press
John Giorno Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and EnlightenmentFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Cathy Park Hong Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning One World
Randall Horton{#289-128}: PoemsUniversity of Kentucky
Gerald Horne The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth CenturyMonthly Review Press
Robert P. Jones White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American ChristianitySimon & Schuster
Judy Juanita Manhattan my ass, you're in OaklandEquidistance Press
William Melvin Kelley (author), Aiki Kelley (illustrator)Dunfords Travels EverywheresAnchor Books
Maryemma Graham Lifetime Achievement Award
Shana Redmond Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson
Jacob SoboroffAnti-Censorship Award: Separated: Inside an American Tragedy

2022 [20]

Author(s)TitlePublisher
Spencer Ackerman Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump Viking
Esther G. Belin, Jeff Burgland, Connie A. Jacobs, Anthony K. WebsterThe Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo LiteratureUniversity of Arizona Press
Emma BrodieSongs in Ursa MajorKnopf
Daphne Brooks Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist SoundHarvard University Press
Myriam J. A. Chancy What Storm, What ThunderTin House Books
Francisco Goldman Monkey BoyGrove Press
Zakiya Dalila Harris The Other Black Girl: A NovelAtria Books
Fatima Shaik Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black BrotherhoodThe Historic New Orleans Collection
Edwin Torres Quanundrum: [i will be your many angled thing]Roof Books
Truong Tran Book of the Other: Small in ComparisonKaya Press
Mai Der Vang Yellow RainGraywolf Press
Phillip B. Williams MutinyPenguin Books
Michelle Zauner Crying in H Mart: A Memoir Knopf
Gayl Jones Lifetime Achievement Award
Jessica E. TeagueWalter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: Sound Recording Technology and American Literature
Jeffrey St. ClairAnti-Censorship Award
Wave Books: Charlie Wright (Publisher) / Joshua Beckman (Editor in Chief)Editor/Publisher Award

2023 [21]

Author(s)TitlePublisher
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo When We Were BirdsDoubleday
Edgar GomezHigh-Risk HomosexualSoft Skull
Kelly Lytle Hernández Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the BorderlandsW.W. Norton & Company
Everett HoaglandThe Ways: Poems of Affirmation, Reflection and WonderNorth Star Nova Press
Anne Hyde Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American WestW.W. Norton & Company
Jamil Jan Kochai The Haunting of Haji Hotak and Other StoriesViking
Aidan LevySaxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny RollinsHachette Books
Bojan LouisSinking Bell: StoriesGray Wolf Press
Leila Mottley NightcrawlingKnopf
Darryl Pinckney Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, ManhattanFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Sherry ShenodaMummy EatersUniversity of Nebraska Press
Mosab Abu Toha Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from GazaCity Lights Books
Javier Zamora Solito: A MemoirHogarth
Maxine Hong Kingston Lifetime Achievement Award
Neta Crawford Anti-Censorship Award
Bell hooks Walter & Lilliam Lowenfels Award for Criticism

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References

  1. "For Immediate Release:" (August 5, 2010). Before Columbus Foundation. Retrieved February 17, 2012. Archived July 13, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1 2 "Previous Winners of the American Book Award" (PDF). Before Columbus Foundation. 2002. Retrieved September 13, 2014.
  3. "About". Before Columbus Foundation. Archived from the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014.
  4. "American Book Awards". Before Columbus Foundation. Archived from the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014.
  5. "History Of The National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
  6. Zarco, Cyn (1986). Cir'cum.nav'i.ga'tion. Tooth of Time Books. ISBN   978-0-940510-13-5.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 American Booksellers Association (2013). "The American Book Awards / Before Columbus Foundation [1980–2013]". BookWeb. Archived from the original on March 13, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
    The Booksellers presentation begins with unattributed quotation from the Awards press release, a primary source used here.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the American Book Awards" (Index to lists of winners through 2006). Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ankn.uaf.edu). Retrieved July 7, 2012.
  9. "Winners of the 2011 American Book Awards" Archived May 8, 2012, at the Wayback Machine . Before Columbus Foundation. Retrieved July 7, 2012.
  10. "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the ... {2013 winners}". Before Columbus Foundation. Press release September 19, 2013. Retrieved October 16, 2013. Archived December 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  11. "(For Immediate Release) ... Winners of the Thirty-Fifth Annual American Book Awards" (PDF). Before Columbus Foundation. August 18, 2014. Retrieved September 7, 2014.
  12. "Alex Espinoza Wins American Book Award". huizachemag.org. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  13. "(For Immediate Release) ... Winners of the Thirty-Sixth Annual American Book Awards". Before Columbus Foundation. July 20, 2015. Archived from the original on July 23, 2015. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  14. "For Immediate Release: The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Thirty-Seventh Annual American Book Awards" (PDF). August 12, 2016.
  15. "For Immediate Release: The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Thirty-Eighth Annual American Book Awards" (PDF). August 4, 2017.
  16. "For Immediate Release: The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Thirty-Ninth Annual American Book Awards" (PDF). August 13, 2018.
  17. "For Immediate Release: The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Fortieth Annual American Book Awards" (PDF). August 19, 2019.
  18. Before Columbus Foundation. "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the winners of the Forty-first Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS" (PDF). Before Columbus Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  19. Before Columbus Foundation. "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the winners of the Forty-Second Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS". Before Columbus Foundation. Archived from the original on August 28, 2021. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
  20. Before Columbus Foundation. "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the winners of the Forty-Third Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS". Before Columbus Foundation. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  21. "The American Book Award" . Retrieved February 4, 2024.