Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominees and Winning Books
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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.
4 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2010
Winner – Fiction
I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel
List Price: $17.00
Graywolf Press (May 26, 2009)
Fiction, Paperback, 234 pages
ISBN: 9781555975272Publisher: Graywolf Press
Book Description:
I Am Not Sidney Poitier is an irresistible comic novel from the master storyteller Percival Everett, and an irreverent take on race, class, and identity in America
I was, in life, to be a gambler, a risk-taker, a swashbuckler, a knight. I accepted, then and there, my place in the world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales. I was Not Sidney Poitier.
Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.
Percival Everett s hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney s tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not gets arrested in rural Georgia for driving while black, sparks a dinnertable explosion at the home of his manipulative girlfriend, and sleuths a murder case in Smut Eye, Alabama, all while navigating the recurrent communication problem: "What s your name?" a kid would ask. "Not Sidney," I would say. "Okay, then what is it?"
I Am Not Sidney Poitier is an irresistible comic novel from the master storyteller Percival Everett, and an irreverent take on race, class, and identity in America
I was, in life, to be a gambler, a risk-taker, a swashbuckler, a knight. I accepted, then and there, my place in the world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales. I was Not Sidney Poitier.
Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.
Percival Everett s hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney s tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not gets arrested in rural Georgia for driving while black, sparks a dinnertable explosion at the home of his manipulative girlfriend, and sleuths a murder case in Smut Eye, Alabama, all while navigating the recurrent communication problem: "What s your name?" a kid would ask. "Not Sidney," I would say. "Okay, then what is it?"
Winner – Nonfiction
Thelonious Monk: The Life And Times Of An American Original
List Price: $30.00
Free Press (Oct 06, 2009)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 608 pages
ISBN: 9780684831909Publisher: Free Press
Book Description:
THELONIOUS MONK is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist s struggle to make it without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of bebop and establishing Monk as one of America s greatest com posers. Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz s most original composer.
THELONIOUS MONK is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist s struggle to make it without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of bebop and establishing Monk as one of America s greatest com posers. Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz s most original composer.
Winner – Poetry
Sonata Mulattica: Poems
by Rita Dove
List Price: $14.95
W. W. Norton & Company (Sep 27, 2010)
Poetry, Paperback, 240 pages
ISBN: 9780393338935Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Book Description:
Detailing the volatile relationship between the black violinist George Bridgetower and Beethoven, this is a "masterful collection" (Los Angeles Times). The son of a white woman and an African Prince, George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780 1860) travels to Vienna to meet bad-boy genius Ludwig van Beethoven. The great composer s subsequent sonata is originally dedicated to the young mulatto, but George, exuberant with acclaim, offends Beethoven over a woman. From this crucial encounter evolves a grandiose yet melancholy poetic tale. A New Yorker s A Year s Reading; Booklist Editors Choice Award.
Detailing the volatile relationship between the black violinist George Bridgetower and Beethoven, this is a "masterful collection" (Los Angeles Times). The son of a white woman and an African Prince, George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780 1860) travels to Vienna to meet bad-boy genius Ludwig van Beethoven. The great composer s subsequent sonata is originally dedicated to the young mulatto, but George, exuberant with acclaim, offends Beethoven over a woman. From this crucial encounter evolves a grandiose yet melancholy poetic tale. A New Yorker s A Year s Reading; Booklist Editors Choice Award.
Winner – Poetry
Liberation Narratives: New And Collected Poems: 1966-2009
List Price: $34.95
Third World Press (Sep 01, 2009)
Poetry, Paperback, 416 pages
ISBN: 9780883782897Publisher: Third World Press
Book Description:
Spanning a long career, these poems helped define and sustain a movement that added music and brash street language to traditional poetics. Like Amiri Barka (aka LeRoi Jones), this poet and social activist has long combined the personal and the political by adding anger, activism, and outsider art to well-crafted poems. Spoken-word poetry (which recently garnered the author a Grammy nomination) and ""message"" poetry aimed at community healing are innovations in the later works, and as a whole the poems provide an overview of emerging black culture as they borrow language from black consciousness, hip-hop, political speeches, and motivational talks.
Spanning a long career, these poems helped define and sustain a movement that added music and brash street language to traditional poetics. Like Amiri Barka (aka LeRoi Jones), this poet and social activist has long combined the personal and the political by adding anger, activism, and outsider art to well-crafted poems. Spoken-word poetry (which recently garnered the author a Grammy nomination) and ""message"" poetry aimed at community healing are innovations in the later works, and as a whole the poems provide an overview of emerging black culture as they borrow language from black consciousness, hip-hop, political speeches, and motivational talks.
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