Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominees and Winning Books

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award™ honors the best in Black literature. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. Fiction, debut fiction, nonfiction, and poetry honorees are selected in a juried competition. 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
20 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2016
Winner - Debut Fiction
Mourner’s Bench: A Novel
by Sanderia Faye
List Price: $19.95University of Arkansas Press (Sep 01, 2015)
Fiction, Paperback, 340 pages
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Winner - Fiction
Delicious Foods: A Novel
by James Hannaham
List Price: $26.00Little, Brown and Company (Mar 17, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 384 pages
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Winner - Nonfiction
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life Of Ota Benga
by Pamela Newkirk
List Price: $25.99Amistad (Jun 01, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover
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Winner - Poetry
Forest Primeval: Poems
by Vievee Francis
List Price: $16.95TriQuarterly Books (Nov 30, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 104 pages
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Finalist - Fiction
The Lost Child: A Novel
by Caryl Phillips
List Price: $26.00Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Mar 10, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 272 pages
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Finalist - Fiction
The Turner House
by Angela Flournoy
- 1 Time Power List Bestselling Book
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
- 2016 BCALA Literary Award
- A New York Times Notable Book for 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Apr 14, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 352 pages
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Finalist - Nonfiction
The Light Of The World: A Memoir
by Elizabeth Alexander
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
Grand Central Publishing (Apr 21, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 224 pages
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Finalist - Nonfiction
Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic
by Gerald Horne
List Price: $25.00Monthly Review Press (Oct 22, 2015)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 416 pages
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Finalist - Poetry
Honest Engine: Poems
by Kyle Dargan
List Price: $16.95University of Georgia Press (Apr 01, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 96 pages
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Finalist - Poetry
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ross Gay
- A 2025 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
University of Pittsburgh Press (Jan 07, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 112 pages
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Nominee - Debut Fiction
The Fishermen: A Novel
by Chigozie Obioma
- 2 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 1 Book Club’s Reading List
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
- A New York Times Notable Book for 2015
Little, Brown and Company (Apr 14, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 304 pages
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Nominee - Debut Fiction
The Star Side of Bird Hill
by Naomi Jackson
List Price: $25.95Penguin Press (Jun 30, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 304 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
Welcome to Braggsville: A Novel
by T. Geronimo Johnson
List Price: $25.99Penguin Books (Feb 17, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 384 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
Under the Udala Trees
by Chinelo Okparanta
List Price: $26.00Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Sep 22, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 336 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction
Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America’s Black Colleges and Culture
by Ron Stodghill
List Price: $26.99Amistad (Sep 22, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 272 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction
Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
by Harriet A. Washington
List Price: $15.99Back Bay Books (Oct 04, 2016)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 320 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction
The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America
by D. Watkins
List Price: $21.99Hot Books (Sep 08, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 176 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
How to Be Drawn
by Terrance Hayes
List Price: $20.00William Morrow (Mar 31, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 112 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time: Poems
by Angela Jackson
List Price: $18.95TriQuarterly Books (Feb 15, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 144 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
Voyage of the Sable Venus: and Other Poems
by Robin Coste Lewis
List Price: $26.00Knopf (Sep 29, 2015)
Poetry, Hardcover, 160 pages
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