The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation announced the winners and finalists of the 2019 Legacy Awards on Friday, October 18th and paid tribute to two leaders in the Black literary community: Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, and Glory Edim, founder of the Well-Read Black Girl book club.
Kyle Dargan, author of five collections of poetry, presented the North Star Award – the foundation’s highest honor – to Ms. Dove for her prolific writing career and her commitment to mentoring Black poets. Marita Golden, author and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, presented Ms. Edim with the Madam C.J. Walker award in recognition of Edim’s innovation in creating a space for Black women to celebrate their stories.
Spoken word artist Joseph Green served as Master of Ceremony for the program, which drew more than 200 guests to the Washington Plaza Hotel. Dana Williams, interim dean of the Howard University Graduate School and professor of African American literature, delivered a tribute to Toni Morrison, who served on the foundation’s advisory board. In addition, Kevin Merida, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of ESPN’s The Undefeated, announced that the media platform was sponsoring a new Hurston/Wright award for unpublished nonfiction writers.
The highlight of the evening was the naming of the winners of the juried awards for books by Black authors published in 2018 in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They are as follows:
Fiction
Winner: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (37Ink/Atria)
In the words of the judges: Heads of the Colored People is startlingly alive, real, and rich with robust details and characters we recognize. Thompson-Spires’s voice incorporates multi-layered blackness with worldly and often, brutally frank observations. The stories in this volume are humorous, tragic, witty, honest, compelling and devastating. This book is contemporary yet timeless, a force to be reckoned with and thankfully, takes no prisoners.
Finalists:
A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press)
She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore (Graywolf Press)
Poetry
Winner: American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books)
In the words of the judges: With poems that speak directly to the contemporary moment, and occupy both the past and the future, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin “haunts” both in its innovation and ideals. These are essential poems, essences of our country. Syntactically adroit, this book holds from whom and what we are made, and asks us to reassemble, reconfigure, and readdress what we claim.
Finalists:
Mend, Kwoya Fagin Maples (University Press of Kentucky)
Crosslight for Youngbird, Asiya Wadud (Nightboat Books)
Nonfiction
Winner: May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem by Imani Perry (The University of North Carolina Press)
In the words of the judges: May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem is a thoroughly engrossing read. Imani Perry’s exploration of the origin, evolution, and resonance of this fabled song by James Weldon Johnson and Rosamond Johnson contributes mightily to our understanding of Black cultural and political development from the early nineteenth century onward. This fascinating book is largely about the collective strivings of Black people, as well as the enduring relationship and importance of the “Black National Anthem” to those struggles.
Finalists:
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, Brittney Cooper (St. Martin’s Press)
Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster, Stephen L. Carter (Henry Holt and Company)
The full slate of nominees selected by the judges include:
Fiction
Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner)
Brother, David Chariandy (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan (Alfred A. Knopf)
Nonfiction
Tigerland: 1968-1969 A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing, Wil Haygood (Alfred A. Knopf)
Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon (Scribner)
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart (Oxford University Press)
Poetry
Approaching the Fields, Chanda Feldman (Louisiana State University Press)
DiVida, Monica A. Hand (Alice James Books)
Pardon My Heart, Marcus Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Judges
Fiction: Lesley Nneka Arimah, Tricia Elam Walker and Reginald McKnight
Nonfiction: Debra J. Dickerson, Keith Gilyard and Kali Nicole Gross
Poetry: Adrian Matejka, Myronn Hardy and Donika Kelly
Previously announced recipients of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers also were celebrated during the ceremony: Trevor Lanuzza, fiction winner; Elinam Agbo, fiction honorable mention; Bernard Ferguson, poetry winner; Nadia Alexis, poetry honorable mention.