Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominees and Winning Books
← Back to Main Awards Page
Introduced in 2001 The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. In tribute to Zora Neale Hurston, the Foundation has renamed the awards for each category for Fiction, Nonfiction, Debut Fiction, and Poetry – The Zora. These awards are presented at the annual The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards.
Each October, the award winners are celebrated during the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards that draws hundreds of literary stars, readers, representatives of the publishing industry, the arts, media, politics, and academia. Learn more at the Hurston/Wright Foundation’s website.
3 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2004
Purple Hibiscus: A Novel
8-time BLK Bestseller, Adult Fiction (Paperback)
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They re completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home-a home that is silent and suffocating. As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together. Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
Hunting in Harlem
by Mat Johnson
Gentrification-by any means necessary.
With the help of new employees Cedric, Bobby, and Horus-three ex-cons trying to forge a new life-Lester Baines s Horizon Realty is bringing Harlem back to its renaissance. Fate seems to be working in Lester s favor when Harlem s undesirable tenants begin to get clumsy and meet early deaths by accident. A deadbeat dad electrocutes himself in the bathtub. A drug dealer takes flight from his fire escape. A pimp is shot dead by police when they mistake his wallet for a handgun. That s where Horizon steps in. Block by block, Lester and his crew clear out the rubble and the rabble, filling once dilapidated brownstones with black professionals handpicked for their shared vision of Harlem as a shining icon for the race.
Rumors of the Chupacabra, a mythical monster claiming the lives of Harlem s unfortunate, run rampant with Harlem s youth. But it isn t until an ambitious reporter begins to investigate the extraordinarily high accident rate in Harlem that Lester starts to get a little nervous about Horizon s future. For Lester, no cost is too high in protecting Horizon and his vision for restoration. The battle for gentrification and for the souls and very lives of the ex-cons plays out on the streets of Harlem and against a backdrop of beautiful Manhattan brownstones.
Mat Johnson has created vividly memorable characters and a story that stands out as one of the most controversial and explosive in years. As sure to ignite debate as it is to entertain, Hunting in Harlem is an old-fashioned page-turner with a fresh and brave voice.
In Black And White: The Life Of Sammy Davis, Jr
by Wil Haygood
Sammy Davis, Jr was one of the most recognisable showbiz entertainers of the twentieth century: dancer, singer, hyperactive cabaret performer, film star and hard-drinking, high-living bad-boy member of Las Vegas s legendary Rat Pack along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford. But his story was also one of contradiction and compromise: a black man trying to make his name as a star during a time of racial prejudice and even segregation, Sammy Davis, Jr never came to terms with the complexities of his situation. He endured patronising humiliation from his fellow Rat Pack members; he marched with Martin Luther King while, notoriously, cozying up to President Nixon and conducting numerous affairs with white women. Above all, he made his name as a vaudevillian entertainer by arguably accepting the role of honorary white man. This is the definitive portrait of the Rat Pack s most interesting and maverick member.
