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
25 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2023
Winner - Debut Fiction
A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times: Stories
by Meron Hadero
List Price: $26.00Restless Books (Jun 28, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 224 pages
More Info
Winner - General Fiction
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta
by James Hannaham
- 3 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 1 Book Club’s Reading List
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2023)
Little, Brown and Company (Aug 30, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 352 pages
More Info
Winner - Historical Nonfiction
By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners
by Margaret A. Burnham
List Price: $30.00W. W. Norton & Company (Sep 27, 2022)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 352 pages
More Info
Winner - Memoir Nonfiction
Inciting Joy: Essays
by Ross Gay
List Price: $27.00Algonquin Books (Oct 25, 2022)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 256 pages
More Info
Winner - Poetry
Concentrate: Poems
by Courtney Faye Taylor
List Price: $17.00Graywolf Press (Nov 01, 2022)
Poetry, Paperback, 96 pages
More Info
Winner - Speculative Fiction
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments
by T. L. Huchu
List Price: $29.99Tor Books (Apr 05, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 368 pages
More Info
Nominee - Debut Fiction
Nightcrawling
by Leila Mottley
List Price: $28.00Knopf Publishing Group (Jun 07, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 288 pages
More Info
Nominee - Debut Fiction
Finding La Negrita
by Natasha Gordon-Chipembere
List Price: $17.99Jaded Ibis Press (Sep 30, 2022)
Fiction, Paperback, 332 pages
More Info
Nominee - General Fiction
Take My Hand
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- 3 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 1 Book Club’s Reading List
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2023)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
- 2023 BCALA Literary Award
Berkley Books (Apr 12, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 368 pages
More Info
Nominee - General Fiction
People Person
by Candice Carty-Williams
List Price: $27.99Gallery Books/Scout Press (Sep 13, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 336 pages
More Info
Nominee - General Fiction
Mother Country
by Jacinda Townsend
List Price: $17.00Graywolf Press (May 03, 2022)
Fiction, Paperback, 312 pages
More Info
Nominee - General Fiction
The Islands: Stories
by Dionne Irving
List Price: $16.95Catapult (Nov 01, 2022)
Fiction, Paperback, 272 pages
More Info
Nominee - Historical Nonfiction
Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik
by Winston James
List Price: $37.99Columbia University Press (Jul 12, 2022)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 384 pages
More Info
Nominee - Historical Nonfiction
Antagonistic Cooperation: Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture
by Robert G. O’Meally
List Price: $35.99Columbia University Press (Mar 15, 2022)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 280 pages
More Info
Nominee - Historical Nonfiction
We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power
by Caleb Gayle
List Price: $18.00Riverhead Books (Jun 06, 2023)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 272 pages
More Info
Nominee - Memoir Nonfiction
Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments
by D. Watkins
List Price: $27.00Legacy Lit (May 17, 2022)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 280 pages
More Info
Nominee - Memoir Nonfiction
Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery
by Harrison Mooney
List Price: $18.95Truth to Power (Sep 20, 2022)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 336 pages
More Info
Nominee - Memoir Nonfiction
This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown
by Taylor Harris
List Price: $26.00Catapult (Jan 11, 2022)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 272 pages
More Info
Nominee - Poetry
Best Barbarian: Poems
by Roger Reeves
List Price: $26.95W. W. Norton & Company (Mar 22, 2022)
Poetry, Hardcover, 120 pages
More Info
Nominee - Poetry
We Are Not Wearing Helmets: Poems
by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
List Price: $17.00TriQuarterly Books (Feb 15, 2022)
Poetry, Paperback, 104 pages
More Info
Nominee - Poetry
To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness
by Robin Coste Lewis
List Price: $35.00Knopf Publishing Group (Dec 06, 2022)
Poetry, Hardcover, 384 pages
More Info
Nominee - Poetry
Null Landing
by isaiah a. hines
List Price: $14.95Slope Editions (Nov 01, 2022)
Poetry, Paperback, 150 pages
More Info
Nominee - Poetry
Plans for Sentences
by Renee Gladman
List Price: $55.00Wave Books (May 03, 2022)
Poetry, Hardcover, 176 pages
More Info
Nominee - Speculative Fiction
Goliath
by Tochi Onyebuchi
List Price: $26.99Tordotcom (Jan 25, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 320 pages
More Info
Nominee - Speculative Fiction
The Last Dreamwalker
by Rita Woods
List Price: $27.99Forge (Sep 20, 2022)
Fiction, Hardcover, 272 pages
More Info