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
21 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2022
Winner - Debut Fiction
This Life
by Quntos Kunquest
List Price: $18.00Agate Bolden (Jun 08, 2021)
Fiction, Paperback, 250 pages
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Winner - Fiction
The Trees
by Percival Everett
List Price: $17.00Graywolf Press (Sep 21, 2021)
Fiction, Paperback, 288 pages
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Winner - Nonfiction Historical/Social/Political
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
by Howard W. French
List Price: $35.00Liveright Publishing Corporation (Oct 12, 2021)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 512 pages
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Winner - Nonfiction Memoir/Biography
Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
by Shanna Greene Benjamin
List Price: $26.95The University of North Carolina Press (Apr 12, 2021)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 280 pages
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Winner - Poetry
No Ruined Stone
by Shara McCallum
List Price: $18.95Alice James Books (Aug 10, 2021)
Poetry, Paperback, 100 pages
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Nominee - Debut Fiction
Young Blood
by Sifiso Mzobe
Catalyst Press (Apr 13, 2021)
Fiction, Paperback, 320 pages
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Nominee - Debut Fiction
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
by Dawnie Walton
- 2 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 1 Book Club’s Reading List
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2022)
Atria / 37 Ink (Mar 30, 2021)
Fiction, Hardcover, 368 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
The Rib King
by Ladee Hubbard
List Price: $16.99Amistad (Dec 07, 2021)
Fiction, Paperback, 336 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
Reconstruction: Stories
by Alaya Dawn Johnson
List Price: $17.00Small Beer Press (Nov 10, 2020)
Fiction, Paperback, 256 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
Nazaré
by JJ Amaworo Wilson
List Price: $24.95PM Press (Nov 09, 2021)
Fiction, Hardcover, 320 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
The Perishing
by Natashia Deón
List Price: $26.00Counterpoint (Nov 09, 2021)
Fiction, Hardcover, 320 pages
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Nominee - Fiction
Yellow Wife
by Sadeqa Johnson
List Price: $26.00Simon & Schuster (Jan 12, 2021)
Fiction, Hardcover, 288 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction Historical/Social/Political
Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
by Daphne A. Brooks
List Price: $39.95Belknap Press (Feb 23, 2021)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 608 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction Historical/Social/Political
We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
by Mariame Kaba
List Price: $16.95Haymarket Books (Feb 23, 2021)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 240 pages
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Nominee - Nonfiction Memoir/Biography
Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
by Farah Jasmine Griffin
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 2 Book Clubs’s Reading Lists
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2022)
W. W. Norton & Company (Sep 14, 2021)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 272 pages
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Read Our Review of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
Nominee - Nonfiction Memoir/Biography
Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song
by Marlon Peterson
List Price: $28.00Bold Type Books (Apr 13, 2021)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 224 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2021
by Yusef Komunyakaa
List Price: $20.00Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Jun 14, 2022)
Poetry, Paperback, 288 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
A More Perfect Union
by Teri Ellen Cross Davis
List Price: $14.95Mad Creek Books (Feb 10, 2021)
Poetry, Paperback, 74 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love
by Mahogany L. Browne
List Price: $16.00Haymarket Books (Sep 14, 2021)
Poetry, Paperback, 100 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
Tragic City
by Clemonce Heard
List Price: $22.00Anhinga Press (Oct 10, 2021)
Poetry, Paperback, 128 pages
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Nominee - Poetry
Sho
by Douglas Kearney
List Price: $18.00Wave Books (Apr 06, 2021)
Poetry, Paperback, 104 pages
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