Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominees and Winning Books

Hurston/Wright Legacy Award 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


Winner - Fiction


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: $35.00
Liveright 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: $26.95
The University of North Carolina Press (Apr 12, 2021)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 280 pages
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Winner - Poetry


Nominee - Debut Fiction

Young Blood
by Sifiso Mzobe

    List Price: $16.95
    Catalyst Press (Apr 13, 2021)
    Fiction, Paperback, 320 pages
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    Nominee - Debut Fiction


    Nominee - Fiction


    Nominee - Fiction

    Reconstruction: Stories
    by Alaya Dawn Johnson

    List Price: $17.00
    Small Beer Press (Nov 10, 2020)
    Fiction, Paperback, 256 pages
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    Nominee - Fiction


    Nominee - Fiction


    Nominee - Fiction


    Nominee - Nonfiction Historical/Social/Political

    Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
    by Daphne A. Brooks

    List Price: $39.95
    Belknap 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: $16.95
    Haymarket Books (Feb 23, 2021)
    Nonfiction, Paperback, 240 pages
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    Nominee - Nonfiction Memoir/Biography


    Nominee - Nonfiction Memoir/Biography

    Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song
    by Marlon Peterson

    List Price: $28.00
    Bold 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: $20.00
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Jun 14, 2022)
    Poetry, Paperback, 288 pages
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    Nominee - Poetry


    Nominee - Poetry

    I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love
    by Mahogany L. Browne

    List Price: $16.00
    Haymarket Books (Sep 14, 2021)
    Poetry, Paperback, 100 pages
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    Nominee - Poetry


    Nominee - Poetry