The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program in the United States honors published Black writers worldwide for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. [1] [2] It is granted for fiction, nonfiction and poetry, selected in a juried competition. [3]
Each fall, writers and publishers are invited to submit fiction, nonfiction and poetry books published that year. Panels of acclaimed writers serve as judges to select nominees, finalists and winners. A number of merit awards are also presented. [4] Nominees are honored at the Legacy Awards ceremony, held the third Friday in October. The awards ceremony is hosted and organized by the Hurston/Wright Foundation.
In addition to the Legacy Awards, the Hurston/Wright board of directors may present Merit awards during the annual Legacy Award ceremony.
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2005 | Tracy Price-Thompson | A Woman's Worth | [7] |
2006 | Clyde W. Ford | The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries | [8] |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2002 | David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story | |
2003 | Tayari Jones | Leaving Atlanta | |
2004 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Purple Hibiscus | |
2005 | Chris Abani | GraceLand | [7] |
2006 | Denise Nicholas | Freshwater Road | [8] |
2007 | Aminatta Forna | Ancestor Stones | |
2008 | Kwame Dawes | She's Gone | |
2016 | Sanderia Faye | Mourner's Bench | [9] |
2017 | JJ Amaworo Wilson | Damnificados | [10] |
2018 | Ladee Hubbard | The Talented Ribkins | |
2020 | Jeffrey Colvin | Africaville | [11] |
2021 | Rita Woods | Remembrance | |
2022 | Quntos KunQuest | This Life | [12] |
2023 | Meron Hadero | A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times: Stories | [13] [14] |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | T. L. Huchu | Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments | [13] [14] |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2002 | Ken Wiwa | In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy | |
2003 | Elizabeth McHenry | Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies | |
2004 | Wil Haygood | In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. | |
2005 | Alexis De Veaux | Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde | [7] |
2006 | John Hope Franklin | Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin | [8] |
2007 | Wangari Maathai | Unbowed: A Memoir | |
2008 | Edwige Danticat | Brother, I'm Dying | |
2009 | Frank B. Wilderson | Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid | |
2010 | Robin Kelley | Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original | [15] [16] |
2011 | Isabel Wilkerson | The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration | [17] |
2012 | Tomiko Brown-Nagin | Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement | |
2013 | Fredrick Harris | The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics | [18] |
2014 | Craig Wilder | Ebony & Ivy | |
2015 | Elizabeth Nunez | Not For Everyday Use | [19] [20] |
2016 | Pamela Newkirk | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga | [9] |
2017 | Kali Nicole Gross | Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America | [10] |
2018 | Tiya Miles | The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits | |
2019 | Imani Perry | May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem | [23] [24] |
2020 | Albert Woodfox | Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope | [11] |
2021 | Marcia Chatelain | Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Howard W. French | Born in Blackness | [12] |
2023 | Mariame Burnham | By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners | [13] [14] |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Shanna Greene Benjamin | Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay | [12] |
2023 | Ross Gay | Inciting Joy | [13] [14] |
Year | Author | Work | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
2007 | Patricia Smith | Teahouse of the Almighty | |
2008 | Kyle G. Dargan | Bouquet of Hungers | |
2009 | Myronn Hardy | The Headless Saints | |
2010 | Rita Dove | Sonata Mulattica: Poems | [15] [16] [25] |
Haki R. Madhubuti | Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems | [15] [16] | |
2011 | Elizabeth Alexander | Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 | [17] |
2012 | Evie Shockley | the new black | |
2013 | Lucille Clifton | The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 | [18] |
2014 | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | Darktown Follies | |
2015 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric | [19] [20] |
2016 | Vievee Francis | Forest Primeval | [9] |
2017 | Donika Kelly | Bestiary | [10] |
2018 | Evie Shockley | Semiautomatic | |
2019 | Terrance Hayes | American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin | [24] |
2020 | Ladan Osman | Exiles of Eden | [11] |
2021 | Rachel Eliza Griffiths | Seeing the Body | |
2022 | Shara McCallum | No Ruined Stone | [12] [26] |
2023 | Courtney Faye Taylor | Concentrate | [13] [14] |
Year | Author | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | Tracy Price-Thompson | A Woman's Worth | Winner | [7] |
Erica Kennedy | Bling | Nominee | ||
Bridgett M. Davis | Shifting Through Neutral | Nominee | ||
David E. Talbert | Love on the Dotted Line | Nominee | ||
2006 | Clyde W. Ford | The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries | Winner | [8] |
Benilde Little | Who Does She Think She Is? | Nominee |
Year | Author | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story | Winner | |
Kuwana Haulsey | The Red Moon | Finalist | ||
Joyce Palmer | Greenwichtown | Finalist | ||
Patricia Elam | Breathing Room | Nominee | ||
Dana Johnson | Break Any Woman Down | Nominee | ||
Nichelle D. Tramble | The Dying Ground | Nominee | ||
2003 | Tayari Jones | Leaving Atlanta | Winner | |
Nicole Bailey-Williams | A Little Piece Of Sky | Finalist | ||
Zelda Lockhart | Fifth Born | Finalist | ||
Donna Hemans | River Woman | Nominee | ||
Marc Nesbitt | Gigantic | Nominee | ||
Nelly Rosario | Song of the Water Saints | Nominee | ||
2004 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Purple Hibiscus | Winner | |
Stephanie Allen | A Place Between Stations | Finalist | ||
April Reynolds | Knee-Deep in Wonder | Finalist | ||
Asha Bandele | Daughter | Nominee | ||
ZZ Packer | Drinking Coffee Elsewhere | Nominee | ||
Suzan-Lori Parks | Getting Mother's Body | Nominee | ||
2005 | Chris Abani | GraceLand | Winner | [7] |
Esi Edugyan | The Second Life of Samuel Tyne | Nominee | ||
Delores Phillips | The Darkest Child | Nominee | ||
2006 | Denise Nicholas | Freshwater Road | Winner | [8] |
Doreen Baingana | Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe | Nominee | ||
Kalisha Buckhanon | Upstate | Nominee | ||
2007 | Aminatta Forna | Ancestor Stones | Winner | |
Marie-Elena John | Unburnable | Nominee | ||
Asali Solomon | Get Down: Stories | Nominee | ||
2008 | Kwame Dawes | She's Gone | Winner | |
Ravi Howard | Like Trees, Walking | Nominee | ||
Nathan McCall | Them | Nominee | ||
2016 | Sanderia Faye | Mourner's Bench | Winner | [9] |
Naomi Jackson | The Star Side of Bird Hill | Nominee | [9] | |
Chigozie Obioma | The Fishermen | Nominee | [9] | |
2017 | JJ Amaworo Wilson | Damnificados | Winner | [10] |
A. Igoni Barrett | Blackass | Nominee | [27] | |
Elnathan John | Born on a Tuesday | Nominee | [27] | |
2018 | Ladee Hubbard | The Talented Ribkins | Winner | |
Zinzi Clemmons | What We Lose | Nominee | ||
Rivers Solomon | An Unkindness of Ghosts | Nominee | ||
2020 | Jeffrey Colvin | Africaville | Winner | [11] |
Ron A. Austin | Avery Colt Is a Snake, a Thief, a Liar | Nominee | ||
Sion Dayson | As a River | Nominee | ||
2021 | Rita Woods | Remembrance | Winner | |
Tola Rotimi Abraham | Black Sunday | Nominee | ||
Steven Wright | The Coyotes of Carthage | Nominee | ||
2022 | Quntos KunQuest | This Life | Winner | [12] |
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber | The House of Rust | Nominee | ||
Sifiso Mzobe | Young Blood | Nominee | ||
Dawnie Walton | The Final Revival of Opal and Nev | Nominee | ||
2023 | Meron Hadero | A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times: Stories | Winner | [13] [14] |
Leila Mottley | Nightcrawling | Nominee | [28] | |
Natasha Gordon-Chipembere | Finding La Negrita | Nominee | [28] |
Year | Author | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | T. L. Huchu | Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments | Winner | [13] [14] |
Tochi Onyebuchi | Goliath | Nominee | [28] | |
Rita Woods | The Last Dreamwalker | Nominee | [28] |
Year | Author | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | Ken Wiwa | In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy | Winner | |
A'Lelia Bundles | On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker | Finalist | ||
Paul Robeson Jr. | The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 | Finalist | ||
Michael Datcher | Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story | Nominee | ||
bell hooks | Salvation: Black People and Love | Nominee | ||
Dwight McBride | Impossible Witnesses: Truths, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony | Nominee | ||
2003 | Elizabeth McHenry | Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies | Winner | |
Karla FC Holloway | Passed On: African American Mourning Stories | Finalist | ||
Carole Merritt | The Herndons: An Atlanta Family | Finalist | ||
Lawrence Jackson | Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius | Nominee | ||
Leon E. Wynter | American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America | Nominee | ||
2004 | Wil Haygood | In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. | Winner | |
Lynne Duke | Mandela, Mobutu and Me | Finalist | ||
E. Patrick Johnson | Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity | Finalist | ||
Valerie Boyd | Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston | Nominee | ||
Susan Fales-Hill | Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful | Nominee | ||
Regina Louise | Somebody's Someone | Nominee | ||
2005 | Alexis De Veaux | Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde | Winner | [7] |
Debra J. Dickerson | The End of Blackness | Finalist | ||
Howard French | A Continent for the Taking | Finalist | ||
Elizabeth Alexander | The Black Interior | Nominee | ||
Sheryll Cashin | The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream | Nominee | ||
Ellis Cose | Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge | Nominee | ||
2006 | John Hope Franklin | Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin | Winner | [8] |
Donald Bogle | Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood | Finalist | ||
Lisa E. Farrington | Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists | Finalist | ||
Mary Frances Berry | My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations | Nominee | ||
Dwight A. McBride | Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality | Nominee | ||
Cheryl A. Wall | Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition | Nominee | ||
2007 | Wangari Maathai | Unbowed: A Memoir | Winner | |
Louis Chude-Sokei | The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora | Finalist | ||
Kym Ragusa | The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging | Finalist | ||
Christopher John Farley | Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley | Nominee | ||
Karla F.C. Holloway | BookMarks: Reading in Black and White | Nominee | ||
Walter C. Rucker | The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America | Nominee | ||
Quincy Troupe | The Architecture of Language | Nominee | ||
2008 | Edwige Danticat | Brother, I'm Dying | Winner | |
Sylviane A. Diouf | Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America | Finalist | ||
Sherrilyn Ifill | On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century | Finalist | ||
Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Infidel | Nominee | ||
Jabari Asim | The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why | Nominee | ||
Gerald Horne | The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil and the African Slave Trade | Nominee | ||
2009 | Frank B. Wilderson | Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid | Winner | |
Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood | Finalist | ||
Paula J. Giddings | Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching | Finalist | ||
Sheryll Cashin | The Agitator’s Daughter: A Memoir of Four Generations of One Extraordinary African- American Family | Nominee | ||
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina | Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth- Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend | Nominee | ||
Marcus Reeves | Somebody Scream: Rap Music's Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power | Nominee | ||
2010 | Robin Kelley | Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original | Winner | [15] [16] |
Betty DeRamus | Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad | Finalist | ||
Wil Haygood | Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson | Finalist | ||
Gwen Ifill | The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama | Nominee | ||
James A. Miller | Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial | Nominee | ||
William Julius Wilson | More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City | Nominee | ||
2011 | Isabel Wilkerson | The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration | Winner | [17] |
Lawrence Jackson | The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 | Finalist | ||
Rawn James Jr. | Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation | Finalist | ||
Tom Burrell | Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority | Nominee | ||
Thomas Chatterton Williams | Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture | Nominee | ||
Keith Gilyard | John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism | Nominee | ||
2012 | Tomiko Brown-Nagin | Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement | Winner | |
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts | Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America | Finalist | ||
Binyavanga Wainaina | One Day I Will Write About This Place | Finalist | ||
Melissa V. Harris-Perry | Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America | Nominee | ||
Mark Whitaker | My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir | Nominee | ||
2013 | Fredrick Harris | The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics | Winner | [18] |
Chinua Achebe | There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra | Nominee | ||
Natalie Hopkinson | Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City | Nominee | ||
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot | Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free | Nominee | ||
Ashraf H. A. Rushdy | American Lynching | Nominee | ||
Heather Andrea Williams | Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery | Nominee | ||
2014 | Craig Wilder | Ebony & Ivory | Winner | |
Stanley Crouch | Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker | Finalist | ||
Jesmyn Ward | Men We Reaped | Finalist | ||
Sheri Booker | Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home | Nominee | ||
William P. Jones | The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights | Nominee | ||
Emily Raboteau | Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora | Nominee | ||
2015 | Elizabeth Nunez | Not For Everyday Use | Winner | [19] [20] |
Charles M. Blow | Fire Shut Up in My Bones | Finalist | ||
Charles E. Cobb, Jr. | This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible | Finalist | ||
Danielle Allen | Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality | Nominee | ||
Saladin Ambar | Malcolm X at Oxford Union | Nominee | ||
Bob Herbert | Losing Our Way | Nominee | ||
2016 | Pamela Newkirk | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga | Winner | [9] |
Elizabeth Alexander | The Light of the World | Finalist | [9] | |
Gerald Horne | Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic | Finalist | [9] | |
Ron Stodghill | Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture | Nominee | [9] | |
Harriet A. Washington | Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We Catch Mental Illness | Nominee | [9] | |
D. Watkins | The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America | Nominee | [9] | |
2017 | Kali Nicole Gross | Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America | Winner | [10] |
Alondra Nelson | The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, And Reconciliation After the Genome | Finalist | ||
Christina Sharpe | In the Wake: On Blackness and Being | Finalist | ||
Patricia Bell-Scott | The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice | Nominee | [27] | |
Ibram X. Kendi | Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Nominee | [27] | |
Gary Younge | Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives | Nominee | [27] | |
2018 | Tiya Miles | The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits | Winner | |
Noliwe Rooks | Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education | Finalist | ||
Michael W. Twitty | The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South | Finalist | ||
Danielle Allen | Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. | Nominee | ||
Sheryll Cashin | Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy | Nominee | ||
Camille T. Dungy | Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History | Nominee | ||
2019 | Imani Perry | May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem | Winner | [23] [24] |
Stephen L. Carter | Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster | Finalist | ||
Brittney Cooper | Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower | Finalist | [23] | |
Wil Haygood | Tigerland: 1968–1969 A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing | Nominee | ||
Kiese Laymon | Heavy: An American Memoir | Nominee | [23] | |
Jeffrey C. Stewart | The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke | Nominee | ||
2020 | Albert Woodfox | Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope | Winner | [11] |
Clyde Ford | Think Black: A Memoir | Finalist | ||
Saidiya Hartman | Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals | Finalist | ||
Ben Crump | Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People | Nominee | ||
Dani McClain | We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood | Nominee | ||
Damon Young | What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays | Nominee | ||
2021 | Marcia Chatelain | Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America | Winner | |
Vincent Brown | Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War | Finalist | ||
Deirdre Mask | The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power | Finalist | ||
Ijeoma Oluo | Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America | Nominee | ||
Ainissa Ramirez | The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another | Nominee | ||
Natasha Trethewey | Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir | Nominee |
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Howard W. French | Born in Blackness | Winner | [12] |
Daphne Brooks | Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound | Nominee | ||
Mariame Kaba | We Do This Till We Free Us | Nominee | ||
2023 | Mariame Burnham | By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners | Winner | [13] [14] |
Robert O’Meally | Antagonistic Cooperation: Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture | Nominee | [28] | |
Caleb Gayle | We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power | Nominee | [28] | |
Winston James | Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik | Nominee | [28] |
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Shanna Greene Benjamin | Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay | Winner | [12] |
Farah Jasmine Griffin | Read Until You Understand | Nominee | ||
Marlon Peterson | Bird Uncaged | Nominee | ||
2023 | Ross Gay | Inciting Joy | Winner | [13] [14] |
Taylor Harris | This Boy We Made | Nominee | [28] | |
D. Watkins | Black Boy Smile | Nominee | [28] | |
Harrison Mooney | Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery | Nominee | [28] |
Year | Author | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | Patricia Smith | Teahouse of the Almighty | Winner | |
Terrance Hayes | Wind in a Box | Finalist | ||
Quincy Troupe | The Architecture of Language | Finalist | ||
2008 | Kyle G. Dargan | Bouquet of Hungers | Winner | |
Remica L. Bingham | Conversion | Nominee | ||
A. Van Jordan | Quantum Lyrics | Nominee | ||
2009 | Myronn Hardy | The Headless Saints | Winner | |
Jericho Brown | Please | Nominee | ||
Yusef Komunyakaa | Warhorses | Nominee | ||
2010 | Rita Dove | Sonata Mulattica: Poems | Winner | [15] [25] |
Haki R. Madhubuti | Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems | Winner | [15] | |
Samiya Bashir | Gospel | Nominee | ||
Mitchell L. H. Douglas | Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem | Nominee | ||
2011 | Elizabeth Alexander | Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 | Winner | [17] |
Terrance Hayes | Lighthead | Nominee | ||
Thomas Sayers Ellis | Skin, Inc: Identity Repair Poems | Nominee | ||
2012 | Evie Shockley | the new black | Winner | |
Aracelis Girmay | Kingdom Animalia | Nominee | ||
Tracy K. Smith | Life on Mars | Nominee | ||
2013 | Lucille Clifton | The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–210 | Winner | [18] |
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram | But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise | Nominee | ||
Monica Hand | me and Nina | Nominee | ||
2014 | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | Darktown Follies | Winner | |
Yona Harvey | Hemming the Water | Finalist | ||
A. Van Jordan | The Cineaste: Poems | Finalist | ||
Remica L. Bingham | What We Ask of Flesh | Nominee | ||
Adrian Matejka | The Big Smoke | Nominee | ||
Carl Phillips | Silverchest | Nominee | ||
2015 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric | Winner | [19] [20] |
Geffrey Davis | Revising the Storm | Finalist | ||
Roger Reeves | King Me | Finalist | ||
Brian Gilmore | We Don't Know Any Gangsters | Nominee | ||
Gregory Pardlo | Digest | Nominee | ||
Willie Perdomo | The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon | Nominee | ||
2016 | Vievee Francis | Forest Primeval | Winner | [9] |
Kyle Dargan | Honest Engine | Finalist | [9] | |
Ross Gay | Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude | Finalist | [9] | |
Robin Coste Lewis | Voyage of the Sable Venus | Nominee | [9] | |
Terrance Hayes | How to Be Drawn | Nominee | [9] | |
Angela Jackson | It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time | Nominee | [9] | |
2017 | Donika Kelly | Bestiary | Winner | [10] |
francine j. harris | play dead | Finalist | ||
Phillip B. Williams | Thief in the Interior | Finalist | ||
Ruth Ellen Kocher | Third Voice | Nominee | [27] | |
Sjohnna McCray | Rapture | Nominee | [27] | |
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | The Crown Ain't Worth Much | Nominee | [27] | |
2018 | Evie Shockley | Semiautomatic | Winner | |
Nicole Sealey | Ordinary Beast | Finalist | ||
Patricia Smith | Incendiary Art | Finalist | ||
Kwame Dawes | City of Bones | Nominee | ||
Camille T. Dungy | Trophic Cascade | Nominee | ||
Shane McCrae | In the Language of My Captor | Nominee | ||
2019 | Terrance Hayes | American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin | Winner | [24] |
Kwoya Fagin Maples | Mend | Finalist | [23] | |
Asiya Wadud | Crosslight for Youngbird | Finalist | [23] | |
Chanda Feldman | Approaching the Fields | Nominee | [23] | |
Monica A. Hand | DiVida | Nominee | ||
Marcus Jackson | Pardon My Heart | Nominee | ||
2020 | Ladan Osman | Exiles of Eden | Winner | [11] |
t’ai freedom ford | & More Black | Finalist | ||
Asiya Wadud | Syncope | Finalist | ||
Geffrey Davis | Night Angler | Nominee | ||
Eve L. Ewing | 1919 | Nominee | ||
Alison Rollins | Library of Small Catastrophes | Nominee | ||
2021 | Rachel Eliza Griffiths | Seeing the Body | Winner | |
Tommye Blount | Fantasia for the Man in Blue | Finalist | ||
Carl Phillips | Pale Colors in a Tall Field | Finalist | ||
Erica Hunt | Jump the Clock | Nominee | ||
John Murillo | Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry | Nominee | ||
Kiki Petrosino | White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia | Nominee | ||
2022 | Shara McCallum | No Ruined Stone | Winner | [12] [26] |
Mahogany L. Browne | I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love | Nominee | ||
Teri Ellen Cross Davis | More Perfect Union | Nominee | ||
Clemonce Heard | Tragic City | Nominee | ||
Douglas Kearney | Sho | Nominee | ||
Yusef Komunyakaa | Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth | Nominee | ||
2023 | Courtney Faye Taylor | Concentrate | Winner | [13] [14] |
Cheryl Boyce Taylor | We Are Not Wearing Helmets | Nominee | [28] | |
Robin Coste Lewis | To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness | Nominee | [28] | |
Renee Gladman | Plans for Sentences | Nominee | [28] | |
Isaiah A. Hines | Null Landing | Nominee | [28] | |
Roger Reeves | Best Barbarian | Nominee | [28] |
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published during the preceding calendar year.
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2021, winners receive US$50,000.
The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation/Society. It is administered by PEN America. Mary Welsh Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.
Jorie Graham is an American poet. The Poetry Foundation called Graham "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation." She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, becoming the first woman to be appointed to this position. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1996) for The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994 and was chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1997 to 2003. She won the 2013 International Nonino Prize in Italy.
The Orwell Prize is a British prize for political writing. The Prize is awarded by The Orwell Foundation, an independent charity governed by a board of trustees. Four prizes are awarded each year: one each for a fiction and non-fiction book on politics, one for journalism and one for "Exposing Britain's Social Evils" ; between 2009 and 2012, a fifth prize was awarded for blogging. In each case, the winner is the short-listed entry which comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition to "make political writing into an art".
Percival Leonard Everett II is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologically ironic" and has played around with numerous genres such as western fiction, mysteries, thrillers, satire and philosophical fiction. His books are often satirical, aimed at exploring race and identity issues in the United States.
The Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually. In 2015, the finalists were for the first time, all women. Winners of the Thurber Prize have included authors from an array of diverse backgrounds, from The Daily Show hosts Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah to The New Yorker staff writers Calvin Trillin and Ian Frazier, as well as university professors Julie Schumacher and Harrison Scott Key.
Christopher Abani is a Nigerian American and Los Angeles- based author. He says he is part of a new generation of Nigerian writers working to convey to an English-speaking audience the experience of those born and raised in "that troubled African nation".
The PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award honors "excellence in the art of the short story". It is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors. The award was first given in 1988.
Douglas Kearney is an American poet, performer and librettist. Kearney grew up in Altadena, California. His work has appeared in Nocturnes, Jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, Poetry, Pleiades, Iowa Review, Callaloo, Boston Review, Hyperallergic, Scapegoat, Obsidian, Boundary 2, Jacket2, Lana Turner, Brooklyn Rail, and Indiana Review.In 2012, his and Anne LeBaron's opera, Crescent City, premiered and received widespread praise. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota.
The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
Roger William Reeves is an American poet and essayist.
Citizen: An American Lyric is a 2014 book-length poem and a series of lyric essays by American poet Claudia Rankine. Citizen stretches the conventions of traditional lyric poetry by interweaving several forms of text and media into a collective portrait of racial relations in the United States. The book ranked as a New York Times Bestseller in 2015 and won several awards, including the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry, and the 2015 Forward Prize for Poetry Best Collection.
Robin Coste Lewis is an American poet, artist, and scholar. Poet Laureate Emeritus of Los Angeles, Lewis's debut poetry collection, Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2015––the first time a poetry debut by an African-American had ever won the prize in the National Book Foundation's history, and the first time any debut had won the award since 1974. Critics called the collection "A masterpiece", "Surpassing imagination, maturity, and aesthetic dazzle", "remarkable hopefulness ... in the face of what would make most rage and/or collapse", "formally polished, emotionally raw, and wholly exquisite". Voyage of the Sable Venus was also a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Hurston-Wright Award, and the California Book Award. The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Buzz Feed, and Entropy Magazine all named Voyage one of the best poetry collections of the year. Flavorwire named the collection one of the 10 must-read books about art. And Literary Hub named Voyage one of the "Most Important Books of the Last Twenty Years". In 2018, MoMA commissioned both Lewis and Kevin Young to write a series of poems to accompany Robert Rauschenberg's drawings in the book Thirty-Four Illustrations of Dante's Inferno. Lewis is also the author of Inhabitants and Visitors, a chapbook published by Clockshop and the Huntington Library and Museum. Her photo-text collection, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness, was published to great acclaim by Knopf in 2022. Awards included the PEN Award for Poetry, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and the California Book Award (finalist). Her fifth book, Archive of Desire, written in honor of Constantine P. Cavafy, is forthcoming by Knopf in 2025.
The Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour is an annual literary prize awarded to British or British-resident BAME writers. £1,000 is awarded to the sole winner.
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation is an American literary nonprofit organization that supports the development and careers of Black writers. The Foundation provides classes, workshops, an annual conference, and offers the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the North Star Award, among others. Writer Marita Golden and cultural historian Clyde McElvene founded the organization in 1990.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is an American poet, novelist, photographer and visual artist, who is the author of five published collections of poems. In Seeing the Body (2020), she "pairs poetry with photography, exploring memory, Black womanhood, the American landscape, and rebirth." It was a nominee for the 2021 NAACP Image Award in Poetry.
The Trees is a 2021 novel by American author Percival Everett, published by Graywolf Press.
T. Geronimo Johnson is an American filmmaker and novelist. His debut novel, Hold It 'Til It Hurts, was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. His sophomore novel, Welcome to Braggsville, won the 2015 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Fiction Writing, and the inaugural Simpson Family Literary Prize in 2017.