American Book Award Winners

First presented in 1980, by the Before Columbus Foundation, “the American Book Awards Program respects and honors excellence in American literature without restriction or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre. There would be no requirements, restrictions, limitations, or second places. There would be no categories. The winners would not selected by any set quota for diversity, because diversity happens naturally. Finally, there would be no losers, only winners. The only criteria would be outstanding contribution to American literature in the opinion of the judges.”

Here we present the American Book Award recipients of African descent.

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2 Books Honored in 2002

Fiction

Book Description: 
From the author of the national bestseller My Soul to Keep comes a riveting new novel of supernatural suspense — a gripping tale that brilliantly showcases a writer at the pinnacle of her astounding storytelling abilities.
Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing — it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana…a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power — and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose outcome may decide the fate of all humanity.

Poetry

Book Description: 
In this latest collection, Al Young demonstrates why his poetry is loved and followed worldwide. At a time when most American poets are writing what Lawrence Ferlinghetti calls "a kind of prose masquerading in the typography of poetry," Al Young sings. His ear for music never lets him forget that the body is the boom-box of poetry. A master of dramatic monologue, Young continues to work in the many voices and forms that distinguish his work. Rare among contemporary poets, he almost never uses the pronoun "I" to refer to himself. His contempt for the unremitting arrogance of the confessional mode is hardly a secret. Like poets across the ages, Young is grounded and experienced in the pride and prejudice of his own times, and yet he can jump right over the moon and straight at the sun. Whether sonnetizing love or loss, laughing at smug social presumptions, condemning CIA drug deals, the thriving prison industry, bio-tech food, greed in a darkening stockocracy, or celebrating eternal verities, Al Young writes with spirit, imagination, and hope.