The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, presented by the Cleveland Foundation, today announced the winners of the 89th annual awards. The 2024 recipients of the only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and explores diversity are:
- Maxine Hong Kingston, Lifetime Achievement
- Ned Blackhawk, Non-fiction, “The Rediscovery of America”
- Teju Cole, Fiction, “Tremor”
- Monica Youn, Poetry, “From From”
“It is a great pleasure to recognize this year’s winners, who have used their unique voices and experiences to spark critical conversations,” said jury chair Natasha Trethewey, poet, memoirist and Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. “This class joins past recipients, who include literary luminaries and contemporary thought leaders, in leveraging the power of words to explore and confront some of the most challenging topics facing us today.”
Trethewey, a 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner for non-fiction, received a Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2007 and served as the nation’s 19th poet laureate from 2012-2014.
Members of the Anisfield-Wolf jury — Trethewey, Rita Dove, Peter Ho Davies, Tiya Miles and Steven Pinker — salute the new class. Watch the video below as they welcome the newest additions to the Anisfield-Wolf canon.
“This year’s winners join an Anisfield-Wolf canon of literature that has challenged the way that we think and inspired action in individuals around the world,” said Nicholas Roman Lewis, director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
This year’s award winners are among more than 260 recipients of the prize. Past winners include seven writers who won Nobel prizes – Ralph J. Bunche, Nadine Gordimer, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Toni Morrison, Gunnar Myrdal, Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott.
