2021 National Book Award Winners: Complete List

Jason Mott won the National Book Award for Fiction Wednesday for his novel “Hell of a Book,” which chronicles an author’s intertwining with a book tour focusing on a Black boy in the South.

Historian Tiya Miles won the “non-fiction” award.All That She Carries: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Souvenir from the Black FamilyHe traces the history of a family through a cotton sack that a 19th-century enslaved woman gave to her daughter when she was about to be sold separately.

The National Book Award is one of the most closely watched literary awards in the world, previously awarded to intellectuals such as William Faulkner, WH Auden, and Ralph Ellison. It can increase book sales and change an author’s profile.

This year’s ceremony was hosted by comedian and founder of Tiny Reparations Books, dedicated to various voices at Penguin Random House, Phoebe Robinson. His latest book “Please Don’t Sit On My Bed With Your Outer Clothes” was published in September.

This second annual National Book Awards ceremony Robinson was held remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic while recording from Penguin Random House headquarters in New York City and writers and presenters were teleported remotely. In the past years, hundreds of attendees have celebrated Cipriani at a black-tie gala on Wall Street.

“If there is ever a time that highlights the extraordinary experiences that books have provided,” said Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation, “the last 20 months.”

Among the finalists for the Fiction award “Matrixby Lauren Groff about an orphaned young woman who transforms an impoverished convent; “Cloud Cuckoo Landby ” Anthony Doerr, a novel spanning several centuries, two continents and an interstellar ship; “Zorrie” by Laird Hunt, a portrait of the life of a woman in rural Indiana; and “prophetsby ” Robert Jones Jr.is a love story about two enslaved men on an antebellum plantation.

Among the nonfiction finalists “A Little Devil in AmericaA collection of essays by Hanif Abdurrakib Celebrating black artists and artists; “running outBy Lucas Bessire on a Kansas aquifer at risk of extinction and its impact on the area’s farmers and ranchers; “It tastes like wara memoir by Grace M. Cho, who makes family recipes while exploring how war, xenophobia and colonialism are carried in the body; and “covered with night”, by Nicole Eustace, about the 18th century murder trial of a Native hunter.

Martín Espada won the “Poetry Award”.swimmersA book honoring immigrants who drowned in the Rio Grande. The judges said it was “vital for our time and will be vital to those who try to make sense of the present in the future”.

The literary prize for translation went to Elisa Shua Dusapin’s first novel and “Winter in Sokcho,” translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and set in a South Korean resort.

The junior literary prize went to Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” about a 17-year-old queer falling in love for the first time in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the Red Scare. In his speech, he urged the audience to pay attention to school boards and vote in local elections. “We need your support to keep our stories on our shelves. Don’t let them erase us,” he said.

The foundation has awarded two lifetime achievement awards.

Nancy PearlAn author and librarian who has worked with public library systems in Detroit, Tulsa, and Seattle, he received the Literary Award for serving the American literary community.

Karen Tei YamashitaAuthor of eight books, including “Sansei and Sensibility”, “Tropic of Orange” and “Letters to Memory”, he received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, previously awarded to Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, and Maxine. Hong Kingston. Ms. Yamashita teaches literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“Ideas are dangerous and transformative,” he said in his speech. “Writing, then, is creative work for which we are responsible, responsible. Writing requires constant care and honesty.”