Last week, the National Book Foundation announced its 2020 winners in a virtual ceremony hosted by Jason Reynolds, author of the Track series, All American Boys, and Stamped. The ceremony, which is free to watch on Youtube, went off without a hitch and raised a total of $500,000 for the non-profit to help fund literary events and reading education programs across the country.
This year’s ceremony was one of the most diverse in the award’s 71 year history. While before 1999 only 13 writers of color won a National Book Award, this year nearly all of the night’s awards went to writers of color. The National Book Foundation celebrated this feat with a montage of black winner’s past narrated by Reading Rainbow’s LeVar Burton including clips from the acceptance speeches of Colson Whitehead, Ta Nehisi Coates, Ibram X Kendi, and the late John Lewis. In his monologue, Burton reminded audiences of the importance of diversity in literature saying “There is no American literature without the voices of the disenfranchised, the undocumented, the marginalized, and the unheard.”
This year also had two important firsts. Back in October, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio became the first undocumented author to be selected as a finalist for her book The Undocumented Americans, which weaves together her own story with those of immigrants across the nation, and last week, Walter Mosely, author of Devil in a Blue Dress and Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, became the first black man to receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In his acceptance speech, he praised the achievements of his black foremothers and fathers. You can read the enter speech here.
“We, the people who are darker than blue, built this nation brick by brick. We crafted its jazz and bled for its yet to be realized beliefs. These achievements cannot be ignored. We’ve been here from the beginning and we’ll be there at the end, our heads held high when the promise of equality is achieved.” Walter Moseley
Midway through the evening, executive director Lisa Lucas said a tearful goodbye to the National Book Foundation. In July of this year, Lucas was named senior vice president by publishing group Knopf Doubleday and will oversee Pantheon Books and Schocken Books. Broadcasting from the children’s section of the LA public library, Lucas highlighted how the non-profit has continued supporting readers through the pandemic by placing books in public housing and raising money to support vital literary institutions. Twitter, of course, lauded the “certified icon” for her wit and impeccable taste in fashion.
Finally, the night ended with a surprise treat from John Darnielle, author of Wolf in a White Van and Universal Harvester, lead singer of cult band The Mountain Goats and judge for the 2020 translated literature prize. Darnielle performed an acoustic version of his 2005 single “This Year” wrapping up an unprecedented evening with the song’s prescient and cathartic chorus: “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me!”
Meet the Winners
Fiction
Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown
Drawing on Yu’s experience writing for HBO’s Westworld, this postmodern novel takes the form of a screenplay to interrogate asian representation in mass media. It follows actor Willis Wu, who is stuck playing “Background Oriental Man” and occasionally “Delivery Guy” in a fictional cop procedural called Black and White, on his quest to become “Kung Fu Guy” on screens around the world. Kirkus calls it an “acid indictment of Asian stereotypes and a parable for outcasts feeling invisible in this fast moving world.” Interior Chinatown is a perfect read for fans of Don DeLillo and Jonathem Lethem.
Nonfiction
Les and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
After nearly 30 years interviewing friends, family members, colleagues, and adversaries of the radical activist Malcolm X, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Les Payne died in March 2018 leaving his daughter and head researcher Tamara Payne to finish the manuscript which would eventually become The Dead Are Arising: the Life of Malcolm X. Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1941, Les Payne served as captain in the information office of the armed services for two years leading him to become a columnist and editor at Newsday in 1965 where he famously covered the New York City heroin trade and the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army throughout the 1970s. The Dead Are Arising differs from previous biographies like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention with hundreds of original interviews focusing on Malcolm X’s childhood and family life. This biography is a great choice for readers who are already familiar with Malcolm X’s work and are interested in understanding the man behind the words.
Poetry
Don Mee Choi, DMZ Colony
DMZ Colony is Don Mee Choi’s third collection of poetry. Born in South Korea, Don Mee Choi currently works in Seattle where she serves as a translated and adult educator. This new collection, inspired by Choi’s recent return to the Seattle after a year spent in the author’s birth country of South Korea, weaves together oral history, memoir, translation, deconstructed deconstruction theory, doodles, and bricolage to explore America’s “forgotten war” and the intertwined and overlapping histories of the US and South Korea. Not for the faint of heart, Choi’s poetry interrogates violence through the quietest, most forgotten voices.
Young People’s Literature
Kacen Callender, King and the Dragonflies
Few books for young people tackle grief, isolation, and sexuality with as much love and tenderness as Kacen Callender’s King and the Dragonflies. Throughout the novel, twelve year old Kingston James is visited by the spirit of his deceased older brother Khalid in the form of a dragonfly. When King’s best friend Sandy Sanders goes missing, the two create a private paradise together in the bayous of Louisiana. This work is a triumph for LGBTQ representation in young people’s literature, and I’d recommend it to any young person (or adult) who is questioning their gender or sexuality. Seriously, this book will make you cry.
Translated Literature
Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
Born to Zainchi parents (ethnic Koreans born in Japan but lacking Japanese citizenship) in Yokohama, Japan, Yu Miri had a fascinating though oftentimes tragic childhood. Her father was a gambler who physically abused his wife and children, and her mother was a bar hostess who started bringing her to adult parties from a young age. These circumstances eventually lead Yu Miri to drop out of high school and join a travelling theater company where she began writing plays. Since switching novels in the 1990s, Yu Miri’s work has faced racist backlash in Japan forcing the author to make a new home in Korea. Tokyo Ueno Station is Yu Miri’s second novel to be translated into English. It recalls the tragic life of a homeless man named Kazu whose ghost haunts the park where he once sheltered with hundreds of other homeless persons. NPR’s Michael Shaub calls Tokyo Ueno Station “a stunning novel, and a harsh, uncompromising look at existential despair.”
Posted on
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.