The 68th Annual National Book Awards Ceremony has come and gone and it was a good night for women writers. Hosted by Cynthia Nixon with guests like Bill Clinton, the ceremony celebrated some of the brightest names in 2017 literature. Women nabbed fifteen out of twenty National Book Award nominations and, ultimately, won four out of five. Considering the groups of judges for each category made totally independent decisions, that’s a pretty good sign of the changing times.
The winners in each category are:
Fiction winner:
Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
Image Via National Book Foundation
Fiction finalists:
Elliot Ackerman, Dark at the Crossing
Lisa Ko, The Leavers
Min Jin Lee, Pachinko
Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Nonfiction winner:
Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Image Via Amazon
Nonfiction finalists:
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Poetry winner:
Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016
Image Via National Book Foundation
Poetry finalists:
Leslie Harrison, The Book of Endings
Layli Long Soldier, WHEREAS
Shane McCrae, In the Language of My Captor
Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems
Young People’s Literature winner:
Robin Benway, Far from the Tree
Image Via National Book Foundation
Young People’s Literature finalists:
Elana K. Arnold, What Girls Are Made Of
Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Rita Williams-Garcia, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground
Ibi Zoboi, American Street
Jesmyn Ward’s last novel, Salvage the Bones, was also a National Book Award-winner. Sing, Unburied, Sing follows thirteen-year-old Mississippi boy Jojo as he reckons with the painful history of America through an inmate ghost that bears the whole history of the South. Though I haven’t read it, it sounds powerful and it’s nice to see socially conscious stories mash-up genres.
In terms of media attention, the National Book Awards pales in comparison to other mediums’ award ceremonies (i.e. the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, etc.). Part of that is the lack of red carpet buzz. Emma Roberts put that to the test this year, though, wearing a beautiful Ulyana Sergeenko dress that’s completely sheer.
Image Via AOL
The National Book Awards have a great track record, and Executive Director Lisa Lucas has been doing a great job modernizing the National Book Foundation (the ceremony streamed live on Facebook to half a million people!). It’s a bright day for book lovers, especially those wondering what to add to their holiday gift lists!
You can watch the full ceremony here (begins at about the 10 minute mark)!
Feature Images Via AOL and CelebMafia