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
11 Books Honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation in 2024
Winner - Creative Anthology
Sing a Black Girl’s Song: The Unpublished Work of Ntozake Shange
by Imani Perry
List Price: $30.00Legacy Lit (Sep 12, 2023)
Fiction, Hardcover, 496 pages
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Winner - Debut Fiction
Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts
by Soraya Palmer
List Price: $16.95Catapult (Mar 05, 2024)
Fiction, Paperback, 288 pages
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Winner - General Fiction
History of a Difficult Child
by Mihret Sibhat
List Price: $18.00Penguin Books (Jun 25, 2024)
Fiction, Paperback, 400 pages
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Winner - Historical Nonfiction
Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street
by Victor Luckerson
List Price: $30.00Random House (May 23, 2023)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 672 pages
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Winner - Memoir Nonfiction
Wreck: A Daughter’s Memoir of Becoming a Mother
by Cassandra Jackson
List Price: $28.00Viking (May 16, 2023)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 320 pages
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Winner - Poetry
When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again: Poems
by A. Van Jordan
List Price: $26.95W. W. Norton & Company (Jun 06, 2023)
Poetry, Hardcover, 144 pages
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Winner - Speculative Fiction
Lies of the Ajungo
by Moses Ose Utomi
List Price: $19.99Tordotcom (Mar 21, 2023)
Fiction, Hardcover, 96 pages
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Finalist - General Fiction
The Unsettled
by Ayana Mathis
1-time National Bestseller, Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book – Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2024)
Knopf Publishing Group (Sep 26, 2023)
Fiction, Hardcover, 336 pages
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Read Our Review of The Unsettled
Finalist - General Fiction
Chain Gang All Stars
by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
13-time National Bestseller, Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book – Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Adult Fiction (Hardcover)
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2024)
Pantheon Books (Apr 04, 2023)
Fiction, Hardcover, 384 pages
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Finalist - Memoir Nonfiction
Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
by Leta Mccollough Seletzky
List Price: $17.95Counterpoint (Apr 09, 2024)
Nonfiction, Paperback, 304 pages
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Finalist - Poetry
The Beloved Community
by Patricia Spears Jones
List Price: $17.00Copper Canyon Press (Sep 26, 2023)
Poetry, Paperback, 98 pages
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