Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

2010 nominees are as follows:

Fiction

Blonde Roots, Bernardine Evaristo
I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Percival Everett
The Trial of Robert Mugabe, Chielo Zona Eze
Big Machine, Victor LaValle
Black Water Rising, Attica Locke
Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead

Poetry

Gospel, Samiya Bashir
Cooling Board: A Long Playing Poem, Mitchell L.H. Douglas
Sonata Mulattica: Poems, Rita Dove
Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems, Haki R. Madhubuti

Non-Fiction

Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad By Betty DeRamus
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson By Wil Haygood
The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama By Gwen Ifill
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original By Robin Kelley
Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial By James A. Miller
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City By William Julius Wilson

Winners and finalists will be announced November 12th.

I've read Black Water Rising which was also nominated for this year's Orange Prize. I will try to read all nominees by Nov 12th; I've several lined up for September.

Thanks so much for posting this!

Yes, thanks for posting this list! Let's see...I've read I Am Not Sidney Poitier (very good), The Trial of Robert Mugabe (so so), and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (excellent if the reader is familiar with modern jazz). I own but haven't yet read Blonde Roots, Sag Harbor, Sonata Mulattica, Sweet Thunder, The Breakthrough, and More Than Just Race. I'll try to read most of the books I have before the end of the year.

my pleasure guys :)

The Hurston/Wright Foundation Award Ceremony was held last night in Washington, DC. There isn't an official announcement from the foundation's web site, and I can't find any news articles about the winners. However, I did find tweets about the ceremony from @feliciapride, who was in attendance. According to her, these are the winners:

Fiction: I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
Nonfiction: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley
Poetry (tie): Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove, and Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems by Haki R. Madhubuti

I've read I Am Not Sidney Poitier last year and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original this year, and would highly recommend both books. I own Sonata Mulattica, but haven't read it yet, and I'll add Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems to my wish list.

Thanks for the announcement kidzdoc, I didn't see any official announcement either. I read all but the Thelonious Monk so far. I'm glad their was a tie for the poetry (both were excellent). I've always enjoyed Haki's poetry and even though I had already read most of it as most were in previous volumes, it was nice to revisit and see his body of work through the years.

The nominees for this year's awards have been announced:

Fiction:
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Glorious by Bernice McFadden
How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story
How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique

Poetry:
Crave Radiance by Elizabeth Alexander
Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems by Thomas Sayers Ellis
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Nonfiction:
Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth by Ben Shapiro
John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 by Lawrence P. Jackson
Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation by Rawn James Jr.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams

"The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award honors exemplary works of literature before the national community of Black writers. By honoring these nominees, we're recognizing the profound significance, necessity, and genius of Black writers and the stories they tell. A panel of published authors in each genre reviewed submissions and selected nominees from categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

"Winners will receive a cash award and the coveted statute of Djhuiti (je-hu-ty), the ancient Egyptian symbol of the patron saint of writing, speech, and divine intellectual pursuit. Finalists will receive an engraved plaque. The annual Legacy Award ceremony will be held November 10th at the historic Oxon Hill Mansion in Oxon Hill, Maryland near Washington, DC."

More info: http://t.co/lQshJ6P

I have read quite a few of these. There are a couple I'm been wanting to get to from my TBR and a couple I have to purchase.

I enjoyed How to Escape from a Leper Colony and have, but haven't yet read, How to Read the Air and The Warmth of Other Sons. I'll have to look into some of the others.

The winners of this year's awards have been announced:

Fiction: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
Poetry: Crave Radiance by Elizabeth Alexander
Nonfiction: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

The 2012 nominees have been announced:

Fiction:
Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
You Are Free: Stories by Danzy Senna
Salvage the Bones by Jessmyn Ward (winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Poetry:
Kingdom Animalia (American Poets Continuum) by Aracelis Girmay
The new black (Wesleyan Poetry Series) by Evie Shockley
Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith (winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry)

Nonfiction:
Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement by Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts (finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography, and shortlisted for the 2012 Dolman Best Travel Book Award (UK))
One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina
My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir by Mark Whitaker

I've only read Salvage the Bones and Harlem Is Nowhere so far. I own Zone One, Life on Mars and One Day I Will Write About This Place. If possible I'd like to read all of these books by the end of the year, or by early 2013 at the latest.

I love Life on Mars... as for the rest I am a bit behind...

Thanks for posting kidzdoc. I've read Silver Sparrow, Mr. Fox, Salvage the Bones, and Zone One on the Fiction list.

I do have You Are Free and Life on Mars but have not read yet.

For Nonfiction, I read Sister Citizen and Harlem is Nowhere.

Off to add some books to my Amazon cart. :) Did much better on this list than I did picking Booker prize books before they come out - LOL

The only one I've read is Mr. Fox, and I've looked at One Day I Will Write About This Place in the bookstore.

The winners of this year's Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are:

Fiction: Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
Poetry: The new black by Evie Shockley
Nonfiction: Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

More info: 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Winners/Finalists

The 2013 nominees have been announced:

Fiction:
Half-Blood Blues: A Novel by Esi Edugyan
Elsewhere, California: A Novel by Dana Johnson
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden

Poetry:
But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton
me and Nina by Monica Hand

Nonfiction:
There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe
The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics by Frederick Harris
Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson
Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
American Lynching by Ashraf H. A. Rushdy
Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams

well, esi edugyan's book continues to amaze with with the legs her novel has had since its release. just this week, the book was also selected as part of the 2014 round of 'canada reads': http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2013/11/meet-the-canada-reads-2014-contender...

The nominees for the 2014 awards were announced yesterday:

FICTION:
The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson
Every Boy Should Have A Man by Preston L. Allen
The Gospel According to Cane by Courttia Newland
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

NONFICTION:
Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sheri Booker
The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones
Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America's Universities by Craig Steven Wilder
Kansas City Lightning by Stanley Crouch
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Searching for Zion: The Quest For Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau

POETRY:
Darktown Follies by Amaud Jamaul Johnson
The Cineaste by A. Van Jordan
Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey
What We Ask of Flesh by Remica L. Bingham
Silverchest by Carl Phillips
The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka

The winners will be announced on October 24th. More info: http://www.hurstonwright.org/#!legacy-awards/cwp3

>18 kidzdoc:, thanks for posting the list.

I've read only two of the nominees. I loved We Need New Names and was surprised it didn't get more attention than it was seeming to get.

I didn't like Nine Years Under at all. I thought it was not very well written, it was self-congratulatory, and often mean-spirited. But that's just my take on it.

>19 TooBusyReading: You're welcome. I also read We Need New Names, as it was shortlisted for last year's Booker Prize. I liked the first half, set in Zimbabwe, but I was far less enamored in the descriptions of the main character's life in the US.

I also own but haven't yet read The Good Lord Bird and Men We Reaped. Several critical reviews turned me away from See Now Then, so I've avoided that book even though I've enjoyed several of Jamaica Kincaid's earlier books.

I'll pass on Nine Years Under; thanks for the warning.

>20 kidzdoc: kidzdoc, I highly recommend The Good Lord Bird. I'll look forward to your thoughts upon finishing it.

Haven't read any of these, and haven't heard of many of them, although I've toyed with buying We Need New Names when I've seen it in bookstores.

The 2015 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominees

FICTION:

The Secret History of Las Vegas, Chris Abani
Radiance of Tomorrow, Ishmael Beah
An Untamed State, Roxane Gay
The Moor’s Account, Laila Lalami
The Orchard of Lost Souls, Nadifa Mohamed
Land of Love and Drowning, Tiphanie Yanique

NONFICTION:

Our Declaration, Danielle Allen
This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb
Fire Shut Up In My Bones, Charles Blow
Malcolm X at Oxford Union, Saladin Ambar
Losing Our Way, Bob Herbert
Not for Everyday Use, Elizabeth Nunez

POETRY:

Revising the Storm, Geffrey Davis
We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, Brian Gilmore
Digest, Gregory Pardlo
The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon, Willie Perdomo
Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine
King Me, Roger Reeves

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards Ceremony will take place Friday, October 23rd in Washington, D.C. at the Washington Plaza Hotel.

Fascinating list, especially the non-fiction - I've not come across any of them. I've got Radiance of Tomorrow in my pile from the library, must get to it!

I enjoyed Land of Love and Drowning, but other than that I haven't read any of these (or heard of most of them). I was a big fan of Bob Herbert when he wrote for The New York Times.