Books Honored by the National Book Awards

The mission of the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America. Since 1996, independent panels of five writers have chosen the National Book Award winners in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature.

The first African-American writer to win a National Book Award was Ralph Ellison for Invisible Man.

Check Out AALBC’s Coverage of the National Book Awards:  2017 – 2016 – 2015 – 2014 – 2013

Select Year20182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911989198719831982198019791976197519741973197219691964196219571953

4 Books Honored by the National Book Awards in 1983

Winner - First Novel

Book Description: 
Once the home of poor Irish and Italian immigrants, Brewster Place, a rotting tenement on a dead-end street, now shelters black families. This novel portrays the courage, the fear, and the anguish of some of the women there who hold their families together, trying to make a home. Among them are: Mattie Michael, the matriarch who loses her son to prison; Etta Mae Johnson who tries to trade the ’high life’ for marriage with a local preacher; Kiswana Browne who leaves her middle-class family to organize a tenant’s union.

Winner - Fiction

Book Description: 

• Now a Broadway musical
• Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
• Winner of the National Book Award

Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction. This is the story of two sisters—one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South—who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

“Intense emotional impact… Indelibly affecting… Alice Walker is a lavishly gifted writer.” — New York Times Book Review

“Places Walker in the company of Faulkner.” — The Nation

“Superb… A work to stand beside literature of any time and place.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“A novel of permanent importance.” — Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek

Winner - Children’s Books

Book Description: 

Fire is Warm
Abyssinia Jackson grew up under a vast Oklahoma sky shaded with pecan trees and dotted by endless rows of cotton-pickers cotton. She had the gift of song, a storyteller’s talent, the love of her parents, and the affection and pride of her community.

Fire Can Burn
Then a tornado hits and drives Abby’s family apart. A deranged neighbor targets her for a campaign of vengeful terror. And a vicious physical assault all but breaks her will.

Marked by Fire
In a triumphant story of faith and fortitude, Abby emerges clearly as a young woman who faces pain and joy with the dignity of her heritage and the determination of spirit.

Joyce Carol Thomas’s beautifully written first novel, a 1983 National Book Award winner, remains as poignant and moving today as it was 25 years ago when it was first published.

Finalist - Children’s Books

Book Description: 
Why had he come to her, with his dark secrets from a long-ago past? What was the purpose of their strange, haunting journeys back into her own childhood? Was it to help Dab, her retarded older brother, wracked with mysterious pain who sometimes took more care and love than Tree had to give? Was it for her mother, Vy, who loved them the best she knew how, but wasn’t home enough to ease the terrible longing?Whatever secrets his whispered message held, Tree knew she must follow. She must follow Brother Rush through the magic mirror, and find out the truth. About all of them.