The 69th National Book Award winners were announced last night at a ceremony in New York City. The show was hosted by comedian and author Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation fame, and five books were nominated in each category. This included the Translated Literature category, returning to the ceremony for the first time since 1983. The winners were:
Young People’s Literature
Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
Translated Literature
Yoko Tawada, The Emissary
Translated by Margaret Mitsutani
Poetry
Justin Phillip Reed, Indecency
Nonfiction
Jeffrey C. Stewart, The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Fiction
Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
Chilean author Isabel Allende was awarded with the National Book Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. Allende’s first book, La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits), was published in 1982. She's had more than 20 books published, and her stories have been translated into more than 30 languages, including English. Allende became a United States citizen in 1993, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. She currently lives in California.
A full list of the nominees can be found on the National Book Award's website.
Last Modified April 23, 2024