Michelle Zauner, Gayl Jones receive American Book Awards
Sep 8, 2022, 12:29 AM | Updated: 12:41 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — “Crying In H Mart” memoirist Michelle Zauner, novelist Gayl Jones and author-journalist Francisco Goldman are among the winners of the 43rd annual American Book Awards, presented by Ishmael Reed’s Before Columbus Foundation.
The awards, which Reed helped found in 1979, honor “outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.” Reed, an author, poet and playwright, is a longtime champion of multiculturalism.
Zauner’s memoir, a word-of-mouth bestseller in 2021-2022, was cited by the Foundation, along with Goldman’s novel “Monkey Boy” and Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl: A Novel,” a fictionalized take on the publishing industry. The Foundation also awarded Spencer Ackerman’s “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump,” Emma Brodie’s novel “Songs in Ursa Major,” Daphne A. Brooks’ “Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound” and Truong Tran’s blend of poetry and prose “Book of the Other: Small in Comparison.”
Jones, known for such novels as “Corregidora” and “Eva’s Man,” was honored for lifetime achievement. Editor Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch, a self-described “independent left-leaning” publication for which Reed is a contributor, was given an Anti-Censorship Award.
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