Hurston-Wright Legacy Award

Legacy Award

The Legacy Awards, granted for fiction, nonfiction and poetry, are selected in a juried competition.^[5]

The 2017 award winners were Colson Whitehead in fiction for The Underground Railroad; JJ Amaworo Wilson in debut fiction for Damnificados; Kali Nicole Gross in nonfiction for Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America; and Donika Kelly in poetry for Bestiary.^[6][7][8]

North Star Award

The North Star Award pays homage to the significance of the North Star for enslaved Africans, who looked to it as a guide to freedom. The recipients of the award are individuals whose writing and/or service to the writing community serves as a beacon of brilliant accomplishment and as an inspiration to others.

The 2017 North Star award winner was Dr. Carla Hayden, who made history in 2016 when she was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress, becoming the first woman and first African American to lead the largest library in the world.^[9][10]

Ella Baker Award

The Ella Baker Award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice.

The 2017 Ella Baker award winner was Congressman John Lewis.^[11][12]

Madam C.J. Walker Award

The Madam C.J. Walker Award, named for the pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist, recognizes exceptional innovation in supporting and sustaining Black literature.

The 2017 Madam C.J. Walker award winner was Haki R. Madhubuti, founder of Third World Press, the largest independent Black-owned U.S. press.^[13][14]

Award for College Writers

The Hurston/Wright Foundation honors excellence in writing by Black college students with the Award for College Writers. The award, sponsored by Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, is presented in the categories of fiction and poetry.

The 2018 Award for College Writers recipients are Desiree Evans in fiction and Christell Victoria Roach in poetry.^[15]

Fiction

• What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
• The Tragedy of Brady Sims by Ernest J. Gaines
• Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
• Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou
• The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Debut Novel

• What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
• The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Nonfiction

• Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. by Danielle Allen
• Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy by Sheryll Cashin
• Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy
• The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits by Tiya Miles
• Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education by Noliwe Rooks
• The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

Poetry

• City of Bones by Kwame Dawes
• Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
• In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
• Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey
• Semiautomatic by Evie Shockley
• Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

Fiction

Winner:

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

2 Finalists:

• The Loss of All Lost Things by Amina Gautier
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Nominees:

• The Mother by Yvvette Edwards
• The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden
• Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Debut Novel

Winner:

• Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson

Nominees:

• Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
• Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross

2 Finalists:

• The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, And Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
• In The Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe

Nominees:

• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

Poetry

Winner:

• Bestiary by Donika Kelly

2 Finalists:

• play dead by francine j. harris
• Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams

Nominees:

• Third Voice by Ruth Ellen Kocher
• Rapture by Sjohnna McCray
• The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

Fiction

Winner:

• Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

2 Finalists:

• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
• The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips

Nominees:

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
• Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Debut Novel

Winner:

• Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye

Nominees

• The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
• The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk

2 Finalists:

• The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

• Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne

Nominees:

• Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill
• Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We “Catch” Mental Illness by Harriet A. Washington
• The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins

Poetry

Winner:

• Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis

2 Finalists:

• Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Nominees:

• How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
• It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson
• Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis

Fiction

• The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani
• Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah
• An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
• The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
• The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed
• Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

Nonfiction

• Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen
• This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
• Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow
• Malcolm X at Oxford Union by Saladin Ambar
• Losing Our Way by Bob Herbert
• Not For Everyday Use by Elizabeth Nunez

Poetry

• Revising the Storm by Geffrey Davis
• We Don't Know Any Gangsters by Brian Gilmore
• Digest by Gregory Pardlo
• The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon by Willie Perdomo
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• King Me by Roger Reeves

Fiction

• I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Percival Everett
• Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction

• Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley
• Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus
• Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood

Poetry

• Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems by Haki R. Madhubuti
• Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Rita Dove

Fiction

• Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
• Holding Pattern: Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
• Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction

• Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid by Frank B. Wilderson
• The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings

Poetry

• The Headless Saints by Myronn Hardy

Fiction

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
• The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé

Nonfiction

• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwige Danticat
• Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane A. Diouf
• On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century by Sherrilyn Ifill

Debut Fiction

• She's Gone by Kwame Dawes
• Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard
• Them by Nathan McCall

Poetry

• Bouquet of Hungers by Kyle G. Dargan

Fiction

• All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones
• Dominion: A Novel by Calvin Baker
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nonfiction

• Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai
• The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora by Louis Chude-Sokei
• The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging by Kym Ragusa

Debut Fiction

• Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Poetry

• Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith

Fiction

• My Jim: A Novel by Nancy Rawles
• Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham
• The Untelling by Tayari Jones

Nonfiction

• Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin
• Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle
• Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists by Lisa E. Farrington

Debut Fiction

• Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas

Contemporary Fiction

• The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries by Clyde W. Ford

Fiction

• Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? by Maryse Condé
• The Dew Breaker by Edwige Danticat
• The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda

Nonfiction

• Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis DeVeaux
• The End of Blackness by Debra J. Dickerson
• A Continent for the Taking by Howard French

Debut Fiction

• GraceLand by Chris Abani

Contemporary Fiction

• A Woman's Worth by Tracy Price-Thompson

Fiction

• Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson
• The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke
• A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips

Nonfiction

• In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Wil Haygood
• Mandela, Mobutu and Me by Lynne Duke
• Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity by E. Patrick Johnson

Debut Fiction

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• A Place Between Stations by Stephanie Allen
• Knee-Deep in Wonder by April Reynolds