The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "there are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers.""For Immediate Release:"
(August 5, 2010). Before Columbus Foundation. Retrieved February 17, 2012. The Award is administered by the multi-cultural focused nonprofit

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

, which established it in 1978 and inaugurated it in 1980. The Award honors excellence in American literature without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre. Previous winners include novelists, social scientists, poets, and historians such as

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...

Isabel Allende Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (; born in Lima, 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as ''The House of the Spirits'' (''La casa de los espír ...

, bell hooks,

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

Derrick Bell Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011) was an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. Bell worked for first the U.S. Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 scho ...

, Robin D. G. Kelley,

Joy Harjo Joy Harjo ( ; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetr ...

and Tommy J. Curry.

National Book Awards

In 1980, the unrelated

National Book Awards The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

was renamed American Book Awards. In 1987 it was renamed back to National Book Awards."History Of The National Book Awards"
National Book Foundation. Retrieved February 17, 2012. Other than having the same name during this seven-year period, the two awards have no relation.

Recipients

1980 to 1989

;1980 *

Douglas Woolf Douglas Woolf (March 23, 1922 – January 18, 1992) was an American author of short stories, novels and book reviews. Biography Born in New York City, Woolf grew up in Larchmont, New York and attended Harvard University from 1939 to 1942. Dur ...

for ''Future preconditional: A collection'' *

Edward Dorn Edward Merton Dorn (April 2, 1929 – December 10, 1999, aged 70) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is '' ''Gunslinger'. Overview Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois. ...

for ''Hello, La Jolla'' *

Jayne Cortez Jayne Cortez (May 10, 1934 – December 28, 2012) was an African-American poet, activist, small press publisher and spoken-word performance artist whose voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and ...

for ''Mouth on Paper'' *

Leslie Marmon Silko Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance ...

for ''

Ceremony A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secular) ...

'' *

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (; born October 5, 1947, in Beijing, China) is a contemporary poet. Winner of two American Book Awards, her work is often associated with the Language School, the poetry of the New York School, phenomenology, and visual art ...

for ''Random Possession'' *

Milton Murayama Milton Atsushi Murayama (April 10, 1923 – July 27, 2016) was an American novelist and playwright. A Nisei, he wrote the 1975 novel ''All I Asking for Is My Body'', which is considered a classic novel of the experiences of Japanese Americans ...

for ''All I Asking for Is My Body'' *

Quincy Troupe Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr. (born July 22, 1939) is an American poet, editor, journalist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. He is best known as the biographer of Miles Davis, the jazz music ...

for ''Snake Back Solos'' *

Rudolfo Anaya Rudolfo Anaya (October 30, 1937June 28, 2020) was an American author. Noted for his 1972 novel ''Bless Me, Ultima'', Anaya was considered one of the founders of the canon of contemporary Chicano literature. The themes and cultural references of ...

for ''Tortuga'', a novel 1981 * Alta for ''Shameless Hussy'' *

Alan Chong Lau Alan Chong Lau (born July 11, 1948) is an American poet, and artist. Life Lau was born in Oroville, California and grew up in Paradise, California. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Art. He serves as Arts ...

for ''Songs for Jadina'' * Bienvenido N. Santos for ''Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories'' *

Helen Adam Helen Adam (December 2, 1909 in Glasgow, Scotland – September 19, 1993 in New York City) was a Scottish poet, collagist and photographer who was part of a literary movement contemporaneous to the Beat Generation that occurred in San Francisc ...

for ''Turn Again to Me & Other Poems'' *

Lionel Mitchell __TOC__ Lionel may refer to: Name *Lionel (given name) Places *Lionel, Lewis, a village in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland *Lionel Town, Jamaica, a settlement Brands and enterprises *Lionel, LLC, an American designer and importer of toy trains and mo ...

for ''Traveling Light'' *

Miguel Algarín Miguel Algarín Jr. (11 September 1941 – 30 November 2020) was a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and a Rutgers University professor of English. Early years Algarín was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and ...

for ''On Call'' *

Nicholasa Mohr Nicholasa Mohr (born November 1, 1938) is one of the best known Nuyorican writers, born in the United States to Puerto Rican parents. In 1973, she became the first Nuyorican woman in the 20th century to have her literary works published by the maj ...

for ''Felita'' *

Peter Blue Cloud Peter Blue Cloud (Aroniawenrate) (1933 – 2011) was a Mohawk poet, and folklorist. Early life He was born June 10, 1933 of the Turtle Clan of the Mohawk Nation on the Caughnawaga Reserve in Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada Quebec ( ; )Accordi ...

for ''Back Then Tomorrow'' * Robert Kelly for ''The Time of Voice: Poems 1994–1996'' *

Rose Drachler A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

for ''The Choice'' *

Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.

for ''The Liberties'' *

Toni Cade Bambara Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade (March 25, 1939 – December 9, 1995), was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor. Biography Early life and education Miltona Mirkin Cade was bor ...

for ''

The Salt Eaters ''The Salt Eaters'' is a 1980 novel, the first such work by Toni Cade Bambara. The novel is written in an experimental style and is explicitly political in tone, with several of the characters being veterans of the civil rights, feminist, and anti ...

'' 1982 *

Al Young Albert James Young (May 31, 1939 – April 17, 2021) was an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008. Young's many books includ ...

for ''Bodies and Soul'' *

Duane Niatum Duane Niatum (McGinniss) is a Native American poet, author and playwright from the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in the northern Olympic Peninsula of the state of Washington. Niatum's work draws inspiration from all aspects of life ranging from natu ...

for ''Songs for the Harvester of Dreams: Poems'' * E. L. Mayo for ''Collected Poems E L Mayo'' *

Frank Chin Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. Life and career Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940; until the age of s ...

for '' The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon'' * Hilton Obenzinger for ''This Passover or the next, I will never be in Jerusalem'' *

Him Mark Lai Him Mark Lai (; November 1, 1925 – May 21, 2009) was a historian of Chinese American, a leader of the Chinese-American community, and writer. He helped restore the state of Chinese American historiography. Lai "rescued, collected, catalogued, p ...

Genny Lim Genny (Genevieve) Lim was born on 15 December 1946, in San Francisco, California. She is an American poet, playwright, and performer. She served as the Chair of Community Arts and Education Committee, and as Chair of the Advisory Board for the San ...

Judy Yung Judy Yung (1946 – December 14, 2020) was professor emerita in American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specialized in oral history, women's history, and Asian American history. She died on December 14, 2020 in San Fran ...

for ''Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910–1940'' *

Jerome Rothenberg Jerome Rothenberg (born December 11, 1931) is an American poet, translator and anthologist, noted for his work in the fields of ethnopoetics and performance poetry. Early life and education Jerome Rothenberg was born and raised in New York ...

for ''Pre-Faces and Other Writings'' * Joyce Carol Thomas for '' Marked by Fire'' * Leroy Quintana for ''Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets'' *

Lorna Dee Cervantes Lorna Dee Cervantes (born August 6, 1954) is an American poet and activist, who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today." Early life Cer ...

for ''Emplumada'' * Ronald Phillip Tanaka for ''The Shino Suite: Japanese-American Poetry'' *

Russell Banks Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. As a novelist, Banks is best known for his "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". His stories usua ...

for ''Book of Jamaica'' *

Tato Laviera Jesús Abraham "Tato" Laviera (September 5, 1950 – November 1, 2013) was a Latino poet and playwright in the United States. Born Jesús Laviera Sanches, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he moved to New York City at the age of ten, with his family, to ...

for ''Enclave'' 1983 *

Barbara Christian Barbara T. Christian (December 12, 1943 – June 25, 2000) was an American author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among several books, and over 100 published articles, Christian was most wel ...

for ''Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976'' * Cecilia Liang for ''Chinese Folk Poetry'' * Evangelina Vigil-Piñón for ''Thirty: An' Seen a Lot'' * Harriet Rohmer for ''Legend of Food Mountain: LA Montana Del Alimento'' *

James D. Houston James Dudley Houston (November 10, 1933 – April 16, 2009) was an American novelist, poet and editor. He wrote nine novels and a number of non-fiction works (some co-authored and/or edited). Early life Houston was born in San Francisco, where h ...

for ''Californians: Searching for the Golden State'' * Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn for ''Pet food & tropical apparitions'' *

John A. Williams John Alfred Williams (December 5, 1925 – July 3, 2015) was an African American author, journalist, and academic. His novel ''The Man Who Cried I Am'' was a bestseller in 1967. Also a poet, he won an American Book Award for his 1998 collection ' ...

for ''Click Song'', a novel *

Joy Kogawa Joy Nozomi Kogawa (born June 6, 1935) is a Canadian poet and novelist of Japanese descent. Life Kogawa was born Joy Nozomi Nakayama on June 6, 1935, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to first-generation Japanese Canadians Lois Yao Nakayama a ...

for ''

Obasan ''Obasan'' is a novel by Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it chronicles Canada's internment and persecution of its citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War from the perspe ...

'' *

Judy Grahn Judy Grahn (born July 28, 1940) is an American poet and author. Inspired by her experiences of disenfranchisement as a butch lesbian, she became a feminist poet, highly-regarded in underground circles before achieving public fame. A major influe ...

for ''The Queen of Wands: Poetry'' *

Nash Candelaria Nash Candelaria (7 May 1928 - 2016) was an American novelist. He was known for a tetralogy of novels about the Rafa family. He has been called the "historical novelist of the Hispanic people of New Mexico."Peter Guralnick Peter Guralnick (born December 15, 1943, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American music critic, author, and screenwriter. He specializes in the history of early rock and roll and has written on Elvis Presley, Sam Phillips, and Sam Cooke. Caree ...

for ''Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians'' * Seán Ó Tuama for ''An Duanaire Sixteen Hundred to Nineteen Hundred: Poems of the Dispossessed'' 1984 * Cecil Brown for ''Days Without Weather'' * Gary Snyder for ''Axe Handles: Poems'' *

Howard Schwartz Howard Schwartz (born April 21, 1945, in St. Louis, Missouri) is a widely regarded folklorist, author, poet, and editor of dozens of books. He has won the international Koret Jewish Book Award, for the book ''Before You Were Born'', and won a 20 ...

Mark Podwal Mark Podwal (born June 8, 1945) is an artist, author, filmmaker and physician. He may have been best known initially for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page. In addition, he is the author and illustrator of numerous books. Most of these ...

for ''The Captive Soul of the Messiah: New Tales About Reb Nachman'' *

Imamu Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

for ''Anthology of African American Women: Confirmation Men'' *

Jesús Colón Jesús Colón (1901–1974) was a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican writer known as the Father of the Nuyorican movement. An activist and community organizer, Colón wrote poetry and stories about his experiences as an Afro-Puerto Rican living in New Yor ...

for ''A Puerto Rican in New York, and Other Sketches'' *

Joseph Bruchac Joseph Bruchac (born October 16, 1942) is an American writer and storyteller based in New York. He writes about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a particular focus on northeastern Native American and Anglo-American lives and folklore. He ...

for ''Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian-American Poets'' *

Maurice Kenny Maurice Frank Kenny (August 16, 1929 – April 16, 2016) was an American poet who identified as Mohawk descent. Life Maurice Frank Kenny was born on August 16, 1929, in Watertown, New York. He identified his father as being of Mohawk and Iris ...

for ''The Mama Poems'' *

for ''The heat bird'' *

Miné Okubo Miné Okubo (; June 27, 1912 – February 10, 2001) was an American artist and writer. She is best known for her book ''Citizen 13660'', a collection of 198 drawings and accompanying text chronicling her experiences in Japanese American internmen ...

for ''Citizen 13660'' *

Paule Marshall Paule Marshall (April 9, 1929 – August 12, 2019) was an American writer, best known for her 1959 debut novel '' Brown Girl, Brownstones''. In 1992, at the age of 63, Marshall was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant. Life and career Marshall wa ...

for '' Praisesong for the Widow'' * Ruthanne Lum McCunn, You-shan Tang, Ellen Lai-shan Yeung for ''Pie-Biter'' * Thomas McGrath for ''Echoes inside the labyrinth'' *

Venkatesh Kulkarni Venkatesh Srinivas Kulkarni (1945 – May 3, 1998) was an Indian-American novelist and academic. Early life and education Kulkarni was born in India and graduated from university at age 17. He was originally scheduled to go to medical schoo ...

for ''Naked in Deccan'' * William J. Kennedy for ''O Albany!'' 1985 *

Angela Jackson Angela Jackson (born July 25, 1951) is an American poet, playwright, and novelist based in Chicago, Illinois. Jackson became the Illinois Poet Laureate in 2020. Biography Angela Jackson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the fifth of nine c ...

for ''Solo in the Box Car Third Floor E'' *

Arnold Genthe Arnold Genthe (8 January 1869 – 9 August 1942) was a German-American photographer, best known for his photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and his portraits of noted people, from politicians and sociali ...

, John Kuo Wei Tchen for ''Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown'' * Colleen J. McElroy for ''Queen of the Ebony Isles'' *

Gary Soto Gary Anthony Soto (born April 12, 1952) is an American poet, novelist, and memoirist. Life and career Soto was born to Mexican-American parents Manuel (1910–1957) and Angie Soto (1924-). In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaqui ...

for '' Living Up The Street'' *

Peter Irons Peter H. Irons (born August 11, 1940) is an American political activist, civil rights attorney, legal scholar, and professor emeritus of political science. He has written many books on the U.S. Supreme Court and constitutional litigation. Educ ...

for ''Justice at War'' *

Keiho Soga Yasutaro (Keiho) Soga (相賀安太郎渓芳, March 18, 1873 Tokyo - March 7, 1957) was a Hawaiian Issei journalist, poet and activist. He was a community leader among Hawaii's Japanese residents, serving as chief editor of the '' Nippu Jiji'', the ...

, Taisanboku Mori,

Sojin Takei Park So-jin (born May 21, 1986), better known mononymously as Sojin, is a South Korean singer and actress. She is best known as the leader of South Korean girl group Girl's Day. Early life and education Park So-jin was born on May 21, 1986 ...

, Muin Ozaki for ''Poets Behind Barbed Wire'' *

Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...

for '' Love Medicine'', a novel * Maureen Owen for ''Amelia Earhart'' *

May Sarton May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995), a Belgian-American poet, novelist and memoirist. Although her best work is strongly personalised with erotic female imagery, she resisted the label of ‘lesb ...

for ''At Seventy: A Journal'' * Robert Edward Duncan for ''Ground Work: Before the War'' * Ron Jones for ''Say Ray'' *

Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, ''The House on Mango Street'' (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, '' Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories'' (1991). Her work e ...

for ''

The House on Mango Street ''The House on Mango Street'' is a 1984 novel by Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros. Structured as a series of vignettes, it tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Based ...

'' *

Sonia Sanchez Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver; September 9, 1934) is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays ...

for ''Homegirls and Handgrenades'' *

Julia Vinograd Julia Shalett Vinograd (December 11, 1943 – December 5, 2018) was a poet. She is well known as "The Bubble Lady" to the Telegraph Avenue community of Berkeley, California, a moniker she gained from blowing bubbles at the People's Park demonstra ...

for "The Book of Jerusalem" * William Oandasan for ''Round Valley Songs'' 1986 * Anna Lee Walters for ''The Sun Is Not Merciful: Short Stories'' *

Cherríe Moraga Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding m ...

Gloria Anzaldúa Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkin ...

for '' This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' * Helen Barolini for ''The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writing by Italian American Women'' * Jeff Hannusch for ''I Hear You Knockin : The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues'' * Linda Hogan for ''Seeing Through the Sun'' *

for ''Time's Now/Ya Es Tiempo'' * Natasha Borovsky for ''A Daughter of the Nobility'' *

Raymond Federman Raymond Federman (May 15, 1928 – October 6, 2009) was a French–American novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. He held positions at the University at Buffalo from 1973 to 1999, when he was app ...

for ''Smiles on Washington Square: A Love Story of Sorts'' *

Susan Howe Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements.

for ''My Emily Dickinson'' *

Terence Winch Terence Patrick Winch is an Irish-American poet, writer and musician. Biography Winch was born in New York City in 1945. He grew up in an Irish neighborhood in the Bronx, the child of Irish immigrants. In 1971, he moved to Washington, DC, where h ...

for ''Irish Musicians/American Friends'' *

Toshio Mori Toshio Mori (March 3, 1910 – 1980) was an American author, best known for being one of the earliest (and perhaps the first) Japanese–American writers to publish a book of fiction. He participated in drawing the UFO Robo Grendizer, the J ...

for ''Yokohama, California'' 1987 * Ai for ''SIN'' *

Ana Castillo Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experiment ...

for ''The Mixquiahuala Letters'' *

Cyn Zarco Cynthia "Cyn" Nabozny (born May 13, 1993) is an American singer and songwriter. Personal life Cyn was born on May 13, 1993 in Michigan. She has described her parents' divorce, which occurred when she was a toddler, as "a big driver of her lov ...

for ''Circumnavigations'' * Daniel McGuire for ''Portrait of Little Boy in darkness'' * Dorothy Bryant for ''Confessions of Madame Psyche: Memoirs and Letters of Mei-Li Murrow'' *

Etheridge Knight Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, '' Poems from Prison''. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960. ...

for ''The Essential Etheridge Knight'' *

Gary Giddins Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986 Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a j ...

for ''Celebrating Bird: The Triumph Of Charlie Parker'' *

Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical ''American Splendor'' comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a ...

for ''The New American Splendor Anthology: From Off the Streets of Cleveland'' * James Welch for ''

Fools Crow ''Fools Crow'' is a 1986 novel written by Native American author James Welch. Set in Montana shortly after the Civil War, this novel tells of White Man's Dog (later known as Fools Crow), a young Blackfeet Indian on the verge of manhood, and his b ...

'' *

John Wieners John Joseph Wieners (January 6, 1934 – March 1, 2002) was an American poet. Early life Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Wieners attended St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts and Boston College High School. From 1950 to 195 ...

for ''Selected Poems: 1958–1984'' *

Juan Felipe Herrera Juan Felipe Herrera (born in December 27, 1948) is an American poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers ...

for ''Face Games'' * Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum for ''liberazione della donna: feminism in Italy'' * Michael Mayo for ''Practicing Angels: A Contemporary Anthology of San Francisco Bay Area Poetry'' *

Septima Poinsette Clark Septima Poinsette Clark (May 3, 1898 – December 15, 1987) was an African American educator and civil rights activist. Clark developed the literacy and citizenship workshops that played an important role in the drive for voting rights and ci ...

, Cynthia Stokes Brown for ''Ready from Within: A First Person Narrative'' *

Terry McMillan Terry McMillan (born October 18, 1951) is an American novelist. Her work centers around the experiences of Black women in the United States. Early life McMillan was born in Port Huron, Michigan. She received a B.A. in journalism in 1977 from ...

for ''Mama'' 1988 * Allison Blakely for ''Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought'' *

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

for ''The Collected Poems of Charles Olson: Excluding the Maximus Poems'' * Daisy Bates for ''The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir'' *

David Halberstam David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and late ...

for ''The Reckoning'' * Edward Sanders for ''Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century: Poems 1961–1985'' *

Gerald Vizenor Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and ...

for '' Griever: An American Monkey King in China'' * Jimmy Santiago Baca for ''Martin & Meditations on the South Valley'' * Kesho Y. Scott,

Cherry Muhanji Cherry Muhanji is the pen name of Jeannette Delaine Washington (born April 26, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan), an American writer.

, Egyirba High for ''Tight Spaces'' * Marlon K. Hom for ''Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco Chinatown'' *

Benjamin Hoff Benjamin Hoff (born 1946) is an American author. He is best known as the author of '' The Tao of Pooh'' (1982) and '' The Te of Piglet'' (1992). In 2006, he denounced the publishing industry and announced his resignation from book-writing. His book ...

for ''The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of

Opal Whiteley Opal Irene Whiteley (December 11, 1897 – February 16, 1992) was an American nature writer and diarist whose childhood journal was first published in 1920 as ''The Story of Opal'' in serialized form in the ''Atlantic Monthly'', then later that ...

'' *

Ronald Sukenick Ronald Sukenick (July 14, 1932 – July 22, 2004) was an American writer and literary theorist. Life Sukenick was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was a dentist. He graduated from Midwood High School and Cornell University ...

for ''Down and in: Life in the Underground'' * Salvatore La Puma for ''The Boys of Bensonhurst'' *

for ''

Beloved Beloved may refer to: Books * ''Beloved'' (novel), a 1987 novel by Toni Morrison * ''The Beloved'' (Faulkner novel), a 2012 novel by Australian author Annah Faulkner *''Beloved'', a 1993 historical romance about Zenobia, by Bertrice Small Film ...

'' *

Wing Tek Lum Wing Tek Lum (Chinese: 林永得; born November 11, 1946 Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American poet. Together with a brother he also manages a family-owned real estate company, Lum Yip Kee, Ltd. Life He graduated from Brown University in 1969, wher ...

, Tek Lum Lum for ''Expounding the Doubtful Points'' 1989 * Alma Luz Villanueva for ''The Ultraviolet Sky'' *

Askia M. Touré Askia Muhammad Touré (Rolland Snellings) (born October 13, 1938 in Raleigh, North Carolina) is an African-American poet, essayist, political editor, and leading voice of the Black Arts Movement. Toure helped to define a new generation of black ...

for ''From the Pyramids to the Projects: Poems of Genocide and Resistance!'' *

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

for ''A Burst of Light'' * Carolyn Lau for ''Wode Shuofa: My Way of Speaking'' *

Emory Elliott Emory Bernard Elliott (October 30, 1942 – March 31, 2009) was an American professor of American literature at UC Riverside. Elliott was known in particular for advocating the expansion of the literary canon to include a more diverse range ...

for ''Columbia Literary History of the United States'' *

Eduardo Galeano Eduardo Hughes Galeano (; 3 September 1940 – 13 April 2015) was a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist considered, among other things, "global soccer's pre-eminent man of letters" and "a literary giant of the Latin American left". Galean ...

for ''Genesis'' *

for '' The Chinaman Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co.'' *

Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Am ...

for '' The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism'' *

for ''

Eva Luna ''Eva Luna'' is a novel written by Chilean novelist Isabel Allende in 1987 and translated from Spanish to English by Margaret Sayers Peden. Eva Luna takes us into the life of the eponymous protagonist, an orphan who grows up in an unidentified ...

'' *

J. California Cooper Joan Cooper (November 10, 1931 in Berkeley, California – September 20, 2014 in Seattle, Washington), known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an American playwright and author. She wrote 17 plays and was named Black Playwright of the Ye ...

for ''Homemade Love'' *

Jennifer Stone Jennifer Lindsay Stone is an American actress and nurse. She is known for playing Harper Finkle on the Disney Channel Original series '' Wizards of Waverly Place'' (2007–2012) and in the Disney Channel Original Movie '' Wizards of Waverly Pl ...

for ''Stone's Throw'' * Josephine Gattuso Hendin for ''The Right Thing to Do'' *

Leslie Scalapino Leslie Scalapino (July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010) was an American poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. Writes Hejinian: ...

for ''way'' * Shuntaro Tanikawa for ''Floating the River in Melancholy'' *

Charles Fanning Charles F. Fanning, Jr. is an Irish American historian and academic. Life He grew up in Norwood, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1964, with a master's in 1966, and from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's and doct ...

for ''The Exiles of Erin: Nineteenth-Century Irish-American Fiction'' * William Minoru Hohri for ''Repairing America: An Account of the Movement for Japanese American Redress''

1990 to 1999

1990 *

Adrienne Kennedy Adrienne Kennedy (born September 13, 1931) is an American playwright.Peterson, Jane T., and Suzanne Bennett. "Adrienne Kennedy". ''Women Playwrights of Diversity''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 201–205. She is best known for '' Funnyhous ...

for ''People Who Led to My Plays'' *

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (September 14, 1934 – April 24, 2002) was an American journalist, essayist and memoirist. She is best known for her autobiographical work, particularly her account of growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, and for her tr ...

for ''Italian Days'' *

Daniela Gioseffi Daniela Gioseffi (born 1941) is a poet, novelist and performer who won the American Book Award in 1990 for ''Women on War; International Writings from Antiquity to the Present'' (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1988). She has published 16 books of ...

for ''Women on War (Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age)'' * Elizabeth Woody for ''Hand into Stone: Poems'' * Hualing Nieh for ''Mulberry and Peach: Two Women of China'' * Itabari Njeri for ''Every Good-Bye Ain't Gone'' * James M. Freeman for ''Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-American Lives'' * John C. Walter, J. Raymond Jones for ''The Harlem Fox: J. Raymond Jones and Tammany, 1920–1970'' * John Norton for ''Light at the End of the Bog'' *

José Emilio González Josemilio González (1918–1990) was a Puerto Rican literary critic and editor. He Went to the University of Puerto Rico, where he graduated in Liberal Arts, with specializations in Spanish, French and Philosophy. in 1940, Earned his Master's De ...

for ''Vivar a Hostos'' *

Sergei Kan Sergei A. Kan (born March 31, 1953, in Moscow) is an American anthropologist known for his research with and writings on the Tlingit people, Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, focusing on the potlatch and on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church ...

for ''Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century'' * Lloyd A. Thompson for ''Romans and Blacks'' *

Martin Bernal Martin Gardiner Bernal (; 10 March 1937 – 9 June 2013) was a British scholar of modern Chinese political history. He was a Professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his work ''Black Athena'', a ...

for '' Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'' *

Michelle T. Clinton Michelle T. Clinton (born 1955) is an American poet. Her work appeared in ''Zyzzyva'' Biography Michelle T. Clinton was born in 1955 and grew up in a socio-economically challenged South Central Los Angeles family. She was base in Santa Monica, C ...

Sesshu Foster Sesshu Foster (born April 5, 1957) is an American poet and novelist. Sesshu Foster is a Japanese-American poet of white and Nisei descent. He grew up on Los Angeles’ East Side and came of age in the primarily Chicano neighborhood of City Ter ...

for ''Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry'' *

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

for '' Miles: The Autobiography'' *

Paula Gunn Allen Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's p ...

for ''Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women'' *

Shirley Geok-lin Lim Shirley Geok-lin Lim (born 1944) is an American writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. Her first collection of poems, ''Crossing The Peninsula'', published in 1980, won her the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, a first both for an Asian and for a ...

, Mayumi Tsutakawa, Margarita Donnelly for ''The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology'' 1991 * Alejandro Murguía for ''Southern Front'' * Bell Hooks for ''Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics'' * Bruce Wright for ''Black Robes, White Justice: Why Our Legal System Doesn't Work for Blacks'' * Charley Trujillo for ''Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam'' * D. H. Melhem for ''Heroism in the New Black Poetry: Introductions & Interviews'' * Deborah Keenan for ''Looking for Home: Women Writing About Exile'' *

Jessica Hagedorn Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn (born 1949) is an American playwright, writer, poet, and multimedia performance artist. Biography Hagedorn is an American of mixed descent. She was born in Manila to a Scots-Irish-French-Filipino mother and a Spanish Fi ...

for ''

Dogeaters ''Dogeaters'' is a novel written by Jessica Hagedorn and published in 1990. Hagedorn also adapted her novel into a play by the same name. ''Dogeaters'', set in the late 1950s in Manila (the capital of the Philippines), addresses several socia ...

'' *

John Edgar Wideman John Edgar Wideman (born June 14, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus o ...

for ''Philadelphia Fire'', a novel *

for ''In Mad Love and War'' *

Karen Tei Yamashita Karen Tei Yamashita ( ja, 山下てい ; born January 8, 1951) is a Japanese-American writer. Early life Yamashita was born on January 8, 1951, in Oakland, California. Career Yamashita is Professor of Literature at the University of Calif ...

for '' Through the Arc of the Rain Forest'' *

Lucia Berlin Lucia Brown Berlin (November 12, 1936 – November 12, 2004) was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years aft ...

for ''Homesick: New and Selected Stories'' *

Mary Crow Dog Mary Brave Bird, also known as Mary Brave Woman Olguin and Mary Crow Dog (September 26, 1954 – February 14, 2013) was a Sicangu Lakota writer and activist who was a member of the American Indian Movement during the 1970s and participated in some ...

for ''

Lakota Woman ''Lakota Woman'' is a memoir by Mary Brave Bird, a Sicangu Lakota who was formerly known as Mary Crow Dog. Reared on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, she describes her childhood and young adulthood, which included many historical e ...

'' *

Meridel Le Sueur Meridel Le Sueur (February 22, 1900, Murray, Iowa – November 14, 1996, Hudson, Wisconsin) was an American writer associated with the proletarian literature movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mot ...

for ''Harvest Song: Collected Essays and Stories'' * Mill Hunk Herald Collective for ''Overtime: Punchin' Out With the Mill Hunk Herald Magazine'' * Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer for ''Haa Tuwunaagu Yis, for Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit Oratory'' * R. Baxter Miller for ''The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes'' * Thomas Centolella for ''Terra Firma'' 1992 * A'Lelia Perry Bundles for ''Madam C.J. Walker'' *

Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel '' Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade'' and '' Ra ...

for '' The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale'' * Benjamin Alire Sáenz for ''Calendar of Dust'' *

Donna J. Haraway Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. Sh ...

for ''Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature'' *

Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...

for ''Belonging to the universe: Explorations on the frontiers of science and spirituality'' *

José Antonio Burciaga José Antonio "Tony" Burciaga (1940 – October 7, 1996) was an American Chicano artist, poet, and writer who explored issues of Chicano identity and American society. Early career In 1960 Burciaga joined the United States Air Force. After sp ...

for ''Undocumented Love/Amor Indocumentado: A Personal Anthology of Poetry'' *

Keith Gilyard Raymond Keith Gilyard (born 1952 in New York City) is a writer and American professor of English who teaches and researches in the fields of rhetoric, composition, literacy studies, sociolinguistics, and African American literature. Interested in ...

for '' Voices of the Self: A Study of Language Competence'' * Lucy Thompson for '' To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman'' *

Norma Field Norma M. Field is an author and emeritus professor of East Asian studies at the University of Chicago. She has taught Premodern Japanese Poetry and Prose, Premodern Japanese Language, and Gender Studies as relating to Japanese women. Her areas o ...

for ''In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's End'' *

Peter Bacho Peter Bacho is a writer and teacher best known for his book ''Cebu (novel), Cebu'' which won the American Book Award. His book is defined as Filipino American literature because of its explorations in themes such as neocolonialism and Filipino-Ame ...

for ''

Cebu Cebu (; ceb, Sugbo), officially the Province of Cebu ( ceb, Lalawigan sa Sugbo; tl, Lalawigan ng Cebu; hil, Kapuroan sang Sugbo), is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, and consists of a main island and 16 ...

'' *

Peter Kalifornsky Peter Kalifornsky (October 12, 1911 – June 5, 1993) was a writer and ethnographer of the Dena'ina Athabaskan of Kenai, Alaska. Early life, family and education He was the great-grandson of Qadanalchen, who took the name Kalifornsky after wo ...

for ''Dena'ina Legacy: K'tl'egh'i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky'' *

Raymond Andrews Raymond Andrews (June 6, 1934 – November 25, 1991) was an African-American novelist. Early life and education Raymond Andrews was born June 6, 1934, in Plainview, Georgia, and grew up in north central Georgia. He was the fourth child of Geor ...

for ''Jessie and Jesus and Cousin Claire'' * Sandra Scofield for ''Beyond Deserving'' *

Sheila Hamanaka Sheila Hamanaka is an American freelance children's author and illustrator. Life Hamanaka is a Sansei Japanese American, the daughter of actor Conrad Yama and Mary Takaoka of the Vaudeville group Taka Sisters. She has two older siblings; the wr ...

for ''Journey'' * Stephen R. Fox for ''The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans During World War II'' * Steven R. Carter for ''Hansberry's Drama: Commitment Amid Complexity,'' *

Verlyn Klinkenborg Verlyn Klinkenborg (born 1952 in Meeker, Colorado) is an American non-fiction author, academic, and former newspaper editor, known for his writings on rural America. Early life and education Klinkenborg was born in Meeker, Colorado and raised ...

for ''The Last Fine Time'' * William B. Branch, Amiri Baraka,

August Wilson August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ...

for ''Black Thunder: An Anthology of African-American Drama'' 1993 *

Asake Bomani Ahmed Ololade (born 13 January 1995), known professionally as Asake, is a Nigerian Afrobeats singer and songwriter. He is signed to YBNL Nation and Empire Distribution. His stage name pays homage to his mother, whose first name is Asake. To pr ...

, Belvie Rooks for ''Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris'' * Christopher Mogil, Peter Woodrow for ''We Gave Away a Fortune'' *

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society an ...

for ''Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times'' *

Denise Giardina Denise Giardina is an American novelist. Her book '' Storming Heaven'' was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. '' The Unquiet Ea ...

for ''Unquiet Earth'' *

Diane Glancy (Helen) Diane Glancy (March 18, 1941) is an American poet, author, and playwright. Life and career Glancy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to a Cherokee descent (non-enrolled) father, Lewis H. Hall, and an English-German-American mother. At a ...

for ''Claiming Breath'' *

Eugene B. Redmond Eugene B. Redmond (born December 1, 1937, St. Louis)Burton, Jennifer"Eugene Redmond" ''Oxford Companion to African American Literature''. is an American poet, and academic. His poetry is closely connected to the Black Arts Movement and the city ...

for ''The Eye in the Ceiling'' *

Francisco X. Alarcón Francisco Xavier Alarcón (21 February 1954 – 15 January 2016) was a Chicano poet and educator. He was one of the few Chicano poets to have "gained recognition while writing mostly in Spanish" within the United States. His poems have been also ...

for ''Snake Poems'' *

Gerald Graff Gerald Graff (born 1937) is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Chicago in 1959 and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford Univers ...

for ''Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education'' * Jack Beatty for ''The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley'' * Leroy V. Quintana for ''The History of Home'' * Katherine Peter for ''Neets'aii Gwiindaii: Living in the Chandalar Country'' *

Nelson George Nelson George (born September 1, 1957) is an American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Biography George attended St. John's Univers ...

for ''Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball'' *

Ninotchka Rosca Ninotchka Rosca (born December 17, 1946, in the Philippines) is a Filipina feminist, author, journalist, and human rights activist. best known for her 1988 novel '' State of War'' and for her activism, especially during the Martial Law dictators ...

for ''Twice Blessed'', a novel 1994 * Giose Rimanelli for ''Benedetta in Guysterland'' * Eric Drooker for ''Flood!: A Novel in Pictures'' * Graciela Limón for ''In Search of Bernabe'' * Gregory J. Reed for ''Economic Empowerment Through the Church'' *

Janet Campbell Hale Janet Campbell Hale (January 11, 1946 – November 23, 2021) was a Native American writer and professor. She was Coeur d'Alene and of Ktunaxa and Cree descent. In a sparse style that has been compared to Hemingway, Hale's work often explored is ...

for ''Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter'' *

Jill Nelson Jill Nelson (born June 14, 1952) is a prominent African-American journalist and novelist. She has written several books, including the autobiographical ''Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience'', which won an American Book Award. She wa ...

for ''Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience'' * Lawson Fusao Inada for ''Legends from Camp'' * Nicole Blackman for ''Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe'' * Paul Gilroy for ''The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness'' * Ronald Takaki for ''A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America'' * Rose L. Glickman for ''Daughters of Feminists'' * Tino Villanueva for ''Scene from the Movie GIANT'' * Virginia L. Kroll for ''Wood-Hoopoe Willie'' 1995 * Abraham Rodriguez (novelist), Abraham Rodriguez for ''Spidertown'', a novel * Herb Boyd, Robert L. Allen for ''Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America—An Anthology'' * Denise Chávez for ''Face of an Angel'' * John Egerton (journalist), John Egerton for ''Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South'' * John Ross (activist), John Ross for ''Rebellion from the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chiapas'' * Thomas Avena for ''Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS'' * Linda Raymond for ''Rocking the Babies'', a novel * Li-Young Lee for ''The Winged Seed: A Remembrance'' * Marianna De Marco Torgovnick for ''Crossing Ocean Parkway'' * Marnie Mueller for ''Green Fires: Assault on Eden: A Novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest'' * Peter Quinn (author), Peter Quinn for ''Banished Children of Eve, A Novel of Civil War New York'' * Sandra Martz for ''I Am Becoming the Woman I've Wanted'' * Gordon Henry Jr. for ''The Light People'' * Tricia Rose for ''Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America'' 1996 * Agate Nesaule for ''A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile'' * Arthur Sze for ''Archipelago'' * Chang-Rae Lee for ''Native Speaker (novel), Native Speaker'' * Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni for ''Arranged Marriage'' * E. J. Miller Laino for ''Girl Hurt'' * Glenn C. Loury for ''One by One from the Inside Out: Race and Responsibility in America'' * James W. Loewen for ''Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong'' * Joe Sacco,

for ''Palestine'' * Kimiko Hahn for ''The Unbearable Heart'' * Maria Espinosa for ''Longing'' * Robert Viscusi for ''Astoria'' * Sherman Alexie for ''Reservation Blues'' * Ron Sakolsky, Fred Weihan Ho for ''Sounding Off!: Music as Resistance / Rebellion / Revolution'' * Stephanie Cowell for ''The Physician of London: The Second Part of the Seventeenth-Century Trilogy of Nicholas Cooke'' * William H. Gass for ''The Tunnel'' 1997 * Alurista for ''Et Tu ... Raza'' *

for ''Gospel Choirs: Psalms Of Survival In An Alien Land Called Home'' * Dorothy Barresi for ''The Post-Rapture Diner'' * Guillermo Gómez-Peña for ''The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems, and Loqueras for the End of the Century'' * Louis Owens for ''Nightland'' * Martín Espada for ''Imagine the Angels of Bread: Poems'' * Montserrat Fontes for ''Dreams of the Centaur'', a novel * Noel Ignatiev for ''Race Traitor'' *

for ''Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands'' * Sunaina Maira for ''Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America'' * Thulani Davis for ''Maker of Saints'' * Tom De Haven for ''Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies'', a novel * William M. Banks for ''Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life'' * Brenda Knight for ''Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution'' 1998 * Allison Adelle Hedge Coke for ''Dog Road Woman'' * Angela Y. Davis for ''Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday'' * Brenda Marie Osbey for ''All Saints: New and Selected Poems'' *

for ''Underworld (novel), Underworld'' * Jim Barnes (writer), Jim Barnes for ''On Native Ground: Memoirs and Impressions'' *

for ''Safari West: Poems'' * Nancy Rawles for ''Love Like Gumbo'' * Nora Okja Keller for ''Comfort Woman'' * Sandra Benitez for ''Bitter Grounds'', a novel * Scott DeVeaux for ''The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History'' * Thomas Lynch (poet), Thomas Lynch for ''The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade'' 1999 * Alice McDermott for ''Charming Billy'' * Anna Linzer for ''Ghost Dancing'' * Brian Ward (author), Brian Ward for ''Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations'' * Chiori Santiago for ''Home to Medicine Mountain'' * E. Donald Two-Rivers for ''Survivor's Medicine: Short Stories'' * Edwidge Danticat for ''The Farming of Bones'' * Judith Roche, Meg McHutchison for ''First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim'' * Gioia Timpanelli for ''Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of Sicily'' * Gloria Naylor for ''The Men of Brewster Place'', a novel *

for ''The Last Paradise'' * Jerry Lipka, Gerald V. Mohatt, Ciulistet Group for ''Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup¡k Eskimo Examples'' * Trey Ellis for ''Right Here, Right Now'' * Josip Novakovich for ''Salvation and Other Disasters'' * Lauro Flores for ''The Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature'' * Luís Alberto Urrea for ''Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life'' *

for ''Hip Hop America: Hip Hop and the Molding of Black Generation X'' * Speer Morgan for ''The Freshour Cylinders'' * Gary Gach for ''What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop'' * Chiori Santiago, author, Judith Lowry (artist), Judith Lowry, illustrator, ''Home to Medicine Mountain''
The Booksellers presentation begins with unattributed quotation from the Awards press release, a primary source used here.

2000 to 2009

;2000 * Esther G. Belin for ''From the Belly of My Beauty'' * Allan J. Ryan for ''The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art'' * Andrés Montoya for ''The Ice Worker Sings and Other Poems'' * Camille Peri, Kate Moses (author), Kate Moses for ''Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood'' * David A. J. Richards for ''Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity'' * David Toop for ''Exotica'' * Elva Trevino Hart for ''Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child'' * Emil Guillermo for ''Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective; With an Introduction by Ishmael Reed'' *

for ''The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co.'' * Helen Thomas for ''Front Row at the White House : My Life and Times'' * Janisse Ray for ''Ecology of a Cracker Childhood'' * John Russell Rickford, Russell John Rickford for ''Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English'' * Leroy TeCube for ''Year in Nam: A Native American Soldier's Story'' * Lois-Ann Yamanaka for ''Heads By Harry'' * Michael Lally (poet), Michael Lally for ''It's Not Nostalgia: Poetry & Prose'' * Michael Patrick MacDonald for ''All Souls: A Family Story from Southie'' * Rahna Reiko Rizzuto for ''Why She Left Us'', a novel * Robert Creeley for ''The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975–2005'' * Editor/Publisher:

* Jack E. White, Journalism *

, Lifetime Achievement * Robert Creeley, Lifetime Achievement ;2001 * Amanda J. Cobb for ''Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories: The Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852–1949'' * Andrea Dworkin for ''Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation'' * Carolyne Wright for ''Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire'' * Chalmers Johnson for ''Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire'' * Cheri Register for ''Packinghouse Daughter: A Memoir'' * Chris Ware for ''Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth'' * Diana Garcia (poet), Diana Garcia for ''When Living Was a Labor Camp'' * Elizabeth Nunez for ''Bruised Hibiscus'' * Janet McAdams for ''Island of Lost Luggage'' * Philip Whalen for ''Overtime: Selected Poems'' * Russell Leong for ''Phoenix Eyes and Other Stories'' * Sandra M. Gilbert for ''Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems, 1969–1999'' * Ted Joans for ''Teducation'' * Tillie Olsen for ''Silences'' * William S. Penn for ''Killing Time With Strangers'' * Malcolm Margolin, Editor * Ted Joans, Lifetime Achievement * Tillie Olsen, Lifetime Achievement * Philip Whalen Lifetime Achievement ;2002 * Aaron A. Abeyta, ''Colcha'' * Susanne Antonetta, ''The Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir'' * Rilla Askew, ''Fire in Beulah'' * Tananarive Due, ''The Living Blood'' * Gloria Frym, ''Homeless at Home'' * Dana Gioia, ''Interrogations at Noon'' * LeAnne Howe, ''Shell Shaker'' * Alex Kuo, ''Lipstick and Other Stories'' * Michael N. Nagler, ''Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future'' * Donald Phelps, ''Reading the Funnies : Looking at Great Cartoonists Throughout the First Half of the 20th Century'' *

, ''The Sound of Dreams Remembered: Poems, 1990–2000'' * Jessel Miller, ''Angels in the Vineyards'' * Lerone Bennett, Lifetime Achievement * Jack Hirschman, Lifetime Achievement ;2003 * Kevin Baker (author), Kevin Baker, ''Paradise Alley'' * Debra Magpie Earling, ''Perma Red'' * Daniel Ellsberg, ''Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers'' * Rick Heide, ed., ''Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California'' * Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, Vera Metcalf, and Lars Krutak, eds, ''Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, Our Words Put to Paper: Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and History'' * Alejandro Murguía, ''This War Called Love: Nine Stories'' * Jack Newfield, ''The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania'' * Joseph Papaleo, ''Italian Stories'' * Eric Porter, ''What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists'' * Jewell Parker Rhodes, ''Douglass' Women'', a novel * Rachel Simon, ''Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey'' * Velma Wallis, ''Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River'' * Max Rodriguez, ''QBR: The Black Book Review'' ;2004 * Diana Abu-Jaber, ''Crescent'', a novel * David D. Cole, David Cole, ''Enemy Aliens: Double Standards And Constitutional Freedoms In The War On Terrorism'' * Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden, ''Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America'' * Kristin Hunter Lattany, ''Breaking Away'' * A. Robert Lee, ''Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions'' * Diane Sher Lutovich, ''What I Stole'' * Ruth Ozeki, ''All Over Creation'' * Renato Rosaldo, ''Prayer to Spider Woman / Rezo a la Mujer Arana'' * Scott Saul, ''Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties'' * Michael Walsh (author), Michael Walsh, ''And All the Saints'' ;2005 * Bernard W. Bell, ''The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots And Modern Literary Branches'' * Cecelie Berry, ''Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on Motherhood'' * Jeff Chang (journalist), Jeff Chang, ''Can't Stop Won't Stop (book), Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation'' * Julie Chibbaro, ''Redemption'' * Richard A. Clarke, ''Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror'' * Alisha S. Drabek and Karen R. Adams, ''The Red Cedar of Afognak, A Driftwood Journey'' * Ralph M. Flores, ''The Horse in the Kitchen: Stories of a Mexican-American Family'' * Hiroshi Kashiwagi, ''Swimming in the American: A Memoir And Selected Writings'' * Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ''Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy'' * Don Lee (author), Don Lee, ''Country of Origin'', a novel * Lamont B. Steptoe, ''A Long Movie of Shadows'' * Don West (educator), Don West, ''No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose and Poems'', eds Jeff Biggers and George Brosi * Journalism: Bill Berkowitz ;2006 * MacKenzie Bezos, ''The Testing of Luther Albright'', a novel * Matt Briggs, ''Shoot the Buffalo'' * David P. Diaz, ''The White Tortilla: Reflections of a Second-Generation Mexican-American'' * Darryl Dickson-Carr, ''The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction'' * Thomas Ferraro, ''Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America'' * Tim Z. Hernandez, ''Skin Tax'' * Josh Kun, ''Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America'' * P. Lewis, ''Nate'' * Peter Metcalfe (author), Peter Metcalfe, ''Gumboot Determination: The Story of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium'' * Kevin J. Mullen, ''The Toughest Gang in Town: Police Stories from Old San Francisco'' * Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin, eds., ''A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children'' * Matthew Shenoda, ''Somewhere Else'' * Carlton T. Spiller, ''Scalding Heart'' * Chris Hamilton-Emery, Editor * Jay Wright (poet), Jay Wright, Lifetime Achievement ;2007 * Daniel Cassidy, ''How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads'' * Michael Eric Dyson, ''Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster'' * Rigoberto González, ''Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa'' * Reyna Grande, ''Across a Hundred Mountains'', a novel * Ernestine Hayes, ''Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir'' * Patricia Klindienst, ''The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans'' * Gary Panter, ''Jimbo's Inferno'' * Jeffrey F. L. Partridge, ''Beyond Literary Chinatown'' * Judith Roche, ''Wisdom of the Body'' * Kali VanBaale, ''The Space Between'' ;2008 * Moustafa Bayoumi, ''How Does It Feel to Be a Problem Being Young and Arab in America'' * Douglas A. Blackmon, ''Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II'' * Jonathan Curiel, ''Al’ America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots'' * Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, and Lydia T. Black. ''Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká''. ''Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804'' * Maria Mazziotti Gillan, ''All That Lies Between Us'' * Nikki Giovanni, ''The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968–1998'' * C. S. Giscombe, ''Prairie Style'' *

, ''Where I Must Go'', a novel * L. Luis Lopez, ''Each Month I Sing'' * Tom Lutz, ''Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America'' * Fae Myenne Ng, ''Steer Toward Rock'' * Yuko Taniguchi, ''The Ocean in the Closet'' * Lorenzo Thomas (poet), Lorenzo Thomas, ''Don't Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition'', ed. Aldon Lynn Nielsen * Frank B. Wilderson III, ''Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid'' * J. J. Phillips, Lifetime Achievement ;2009 * Houston A. Baker, Jr., ''Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Right Era'' * Danit Brown, ''Ask for a Convertible'' * Jericho Brown, ''Please'' *

, ''The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga'', eds Mimi R. Gladstein and Daniel Chacón (writer), Daniel Chacón * Claire Hope Cummings, ''Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds'' * Stella Pope Duarte, ''If I Die in Juarez'' * Linda Gregg, ''All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems'' * Suheir Hammad, ''Breaking Poems'' * Richard Holmes (biographer), Richard Holmes, ''The Age of Wonder'' * George E. Lewis, ''A Power Stronger than Itself: The A.A.C.M. and American Experimental Music'' * Patricia Santana, ''Ghosts of El Grullo'' * Jack Spicer, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'', ed. Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian *

, Lifetime Achievement

2010 to 2019

;2010 * Amiri Baraka, ''Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music'' * Sherwin Bitsui, ''Flood Song'' * Nancy Carnevale, ''A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890–1945'' * Dave Eggers, ''Zeitoun'' *

, ''World Ball Notebook'' * Stephen D. Gutierrez, ''Live from Fresno y Los'' * Victor LaValle, ''The Big Machine'' * François Mandeville, ''This Is What They Say'', translated by Ron Scollon from Chipewyan language, Chipewyan * Bich Minh Nguyen, ''Short Girls'' * Franklin Rosemont and Robin Kelley, Robin D. G. Kelley, eds., ''Black, Brown, & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora'' *

and Jeffrey C. Robinson, eds., ''Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic and Postromantic Poetry'' * Kathryn Waddell Takara, ''Pacific Raven: Hawai`i Poems'' * Pamela Uschuk, ''Crazy Love: New Poems'' * Katha Politt, Lifetime Achievement *

, Lifetime Achievement ;2011 *

, ''John Oliver Killens'' * Akbar Ahmed, ''Journey Into America: The Challenge of Islam'' * Camille Dungy, ''Suck on the Marrow'' *

, ''I Hotel'' * William W. Cook and James Tatum, ''African American Writers and Classical Tradition'' *

, ''Shrouds of White Earth'' * Eric Gansworth, ''Extra Indians'' * Ivan Argüelles, ''The Death of Stalin'' * Geoffrey Alan Argent, ed., ''The Complete Plays of Jean Racine: Volume 1: The Fratricides'', translated by Argent from French language, French * Neela Vaswani, ''You Have Given Me a Country'' * Sasha Pimentel Chacón, ''Insides She Swallowed'' * Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores (professor), Juan Flores, eds., ''The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History of Culture in the United States'' * Carmen Giménez Smith, ''Bring Down the Little Birds'' * Luis Valdez, Lifetime Achievement *

, Lifetime Achievement ;2012 * Annia Ciezadlo, ''Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War'' * Arlene Kim, ''What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes?'' * Ed Bok Lee, ''Whorled'' * Adilifu Nama, ''Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes'' * Rob Nixon, ''Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor'' * Shann Ray, ''American Masculine'' * Alice Rearden, translator; Ann Fienup-Riordan, ed., ''Qaluyaarmiuni Nunamtenek Qanemciput: Our Nelson Island Stories'' * Touré (journalist), Touré, ''Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now'' * Amy Waldman, ''The Submission'' * Mary Winegarden, ''The Translator's Sister'' * Kevin Young (poet), Kevin Young, ''Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels'' *

, Lifetime Achievement ; 2013"The Before Columbus Foundation announces the ... "
Before Columbus Foundation. Press release September 19, 2013. Retrieved October 16, 2013. * Will Alexander (poet), Will Alexander, ''Singing In Magnetic Hoofbeat: Essays, Prose, Texts, Interviews, and a Lecture'', Essay Press * Jacob M. Appel, ''The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up'', Cargo * Philip Choy, Philip P. Choy, ''San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide To Its History & Architecture'', City Lights * Amanda Coplin, ''The Orchardist'', Harper Collins * Natalie Diaz, ''When My Brother Was An Aztec'', Copper Canyon Press *

, ''The Round House (novel), The Round House'', Harper Collins * Alan Gilbert (American academic), ''Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence'', University of Chicago *

, ''A Simple Revolution: The Making of an Activist Poet'', Aunt Lute Books *

, ''Crazy Brave: A Memoir'', W.W. Norton & Co. * Demetria Martinez, ''The Block Captain's Daughter'', University of Oklahoma Press * Daniel Moore (poet), Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, ''Blood Songs'', The Ecstatic Exchange * dg nanouk okpik, ''Corpse Whale'', University of Arizona Press * Seth Rosenfeld, ''Subversives: The FBI's War On Student Radical and Reagan's Rise to Power'', Farrar, Straus & Giroux * Christopher B. Teuton, ''Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liar's Club'', University of North Carolina * Lew Welch, ''Ring of Bone: Collected Poems'', City Lights * Ivan Argüelles, Lifetime Achievement * Greil Marcus, Lifetime Achievement * Floyd Salas, Lifetime Achievement ; 2014 * Andrew Bacevich, ''Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country'', Metropolitan Books * Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., ''Black Against Empire; The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party'', University of California Press * Juan Delgado (poetry) and Thomas McGovern (photography), ''Vital Signs'', Heyday Books * Alex Espinoza (writer), Alex Espinoza, ''The Five Acts of Diego León'', Random House * Jonathan Scott Holloway, ''Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940'', University of North Carolina Press * Joan Kane, Joan Naviyuk Kane, ''Hyperboreal'', University of Pittsburgh Press * Jamaica Kincaid, ''See Now Then'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux * Tanya Olson, ''Boyishly'', YesYes Books * Sterling D. Plumpp, ''Home/Bass'', Third World Press * Emily Raboteau, ''Searching For Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora'', Atlantic Monthly Press *

with Heriberto Yepez, ''Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader'', Commonwealth Books * Nick Turse, ''Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam'', Metropolitan Books * Margaret Wrinkle, ''Wash'', Atlantic Monthly Press * Koon Woon, ''Water Chasing Water'', Kaya Press * Armond White, Anti-Censorship Award * Michael Parenti, Lifetime Achievement ; 2015 * Hisham Aidi, Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture (Vintage) * Arlene Biala, her beckoning hands (Word Poetry) * Arthur Dong, Forbidden City, USA: Chinese American Nightclubs, 1936-1970 (DeepFocus Productions) * Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (Beacon Press) * Peter J. Harris, The Black Man of Happiness (Black Man of Happiness Project) * Marlon James (novelist), Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead Books) * Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (Simon & Schuster) * Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account (Pantheon) * Manuel Luis Martinez, Los Duros (Floricanto Press) * Craig Santos Perez, from unincorporated territory [guma’] (Omnidawn) * Carlos Santana with Ashley Kahn and Hal Miller, The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (Little, Brown and Company) * Ira Sukrungruang, Southside Buddhist (University of Tampa Press) * Astra Taylor, The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Henry Holt) * Anne Waldman, Lifetime Achievement 2016 * Laura Da', Tributaries (University of Arizona) * Susan Muaddi Darraj, Curious Land: Stories from Home (University of Massachusetts) * Deepa Iyer, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multicultural Future (The New Press) * Mat Johnson, ''Loving Day (novel), Loving Day'' (Spiegel & Grau) * John Keene (writer), John Keene, Counternarratives (New Directions) * William J. Maxwell, F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature (Princeton University) * Lauret Savoy, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape (Counterpoint) * Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette, The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry (Lawrence Hill Books) * Jesús Salvador Treviño, Return to Arroyo Grande (Arte Público) * Nick Turse, Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa (Haymarket Books) * Ray Young Bear, Manifestation Wolverine: The Collected Poetry of Ray Young Bear (Open Road Integrated Media) * Louise Meriwether, Lifetime Achievement * Lyra Monteiro and Nancy Isenberg, Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award * Chiitaanibah Johnson, Andrew Hope Award 2017 * Rabia Chaudry ''Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial'' (St. Martin's Press) * Flores A. Forbes ''Invisible Men:'' ''A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration'' (Skyhorse Publishing) * Yaa Gyasi ''Homegoing'' (Knopf) * Holly Hughes (performance artist), Holly Hughes ''Passings'' (Expedition Press) * Randa Jarrar ''Him, Me, Muhammad Ali'' (Sarabande Books) * Bernice McFadden, Bernice L. McFadden ''The Book of Harlan'' (Akashic Books) * Brian D. McInnes ''Sounding Thunder: The Stories of Francis Pegahmagabow'' (Michigan State University Press) * Patrick Phillips ''Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America'' (W. W. Norton & Company) * Vaughn Rasberry ''Race and the Totalitarian Century: Geopolitics in the Black Literary Imagination'' (Harvard University Press) * Marc Anthony Richardson ''Year of the Rat'' (Fiction Collective Two) * Shawna Yang Ryan ''Green Island'' (Knopf) * Ruth Sergel ''See You in the Streets: Art, Action, and Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire'' (University of Iowa Press) * Solmaz Sharif ''Look'' (Graywolf Press) * Adam Soldofsky ''Memory Foam'' (Disorder Press) * Alfredo Véa Jr., Alfredo Véa ''The Mexican Flyboy'' (University of Oklahoma Press) * Dean Wong ''Seeing the Light: Four Decades in Chinatown'' (Chin Music Press) * Nancy Mercado ''Lifetime Achievement'' * Ammiel Alcalay ''Editor/Publisher Award'': Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative 2018 * Thi Bui ''The Best That We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir'' (Abrams Books, Harry N. Abrams) * Rachelle Cruz ''God's Will for Monsters'' (Inlandia Books) * Tommy Curry (professor), Tommy Curry ''The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood'' (Temple University Press) * Tongo Eisen-Martin ''Heaven Is All Goodbyes'' (City Lights Bookstore, City Lights) * Dana Naone Hall ''Life of the Land: Articulations of a Native Writer'' (University of Hawaii Press, University of Hawaii) * Kelly Lytle Hernández ''City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965'' (University of North Carolina Press, University of North Carolina) * Victor LaValle ''The Changeling: A Novel'' (Spiegel & Grau) * Bojan Louis ''Currents'' (BkMk Press) * Valeria Luiselli ''Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions'' (Coffee House Press) * Cathryn Josefina Merla-Watson and B. V. Olguín ''Altermundos Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture'' (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press) * Tiya Miles ''The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits'' (The New Press) * Tommy Pico ''Nature Poem'' (Tin House, Tin House Books) * Rena Priest ''Patriarchy Blues'' (MoonPath Press) * Joseph Rios ''Shadowboxing: poems & impersonations'' (Omnidawn) * Sunaura Taylor ''Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation'' (The New Press) * Sequoyah Guess Lifetime Achievement * Kellie Jones ''South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s'' (Duke University Press): Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award * Charles F. Harris Editor/Publisher Award * Rob Rogers (cartoonist), Rob Rogers Anti-Censorship Award * Heroes Are Gang Leaders Oral Literature Award 2019 * Frank Abe, Greg Robinson (writer), Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung ''John Okada: The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy'' (University of Washington Press) * May-lee Chai ''Useful Phrases for Immigrants: Stories'' (Blair) * Louise DeSalvo ''The House of Early Sorrows: A Memoir in Essays'' (Fordham University Press) * Heid E. Erdrich ''New Poets of Native Nations'' (Graywolf Press) * Ángel García (poet), Ángel García ''Teeth Never Sleep: Poems'' (University of Arkansas Press) * Tommy Orange ''There There (novel), There There'' (Knopf) * Halifu Osumare ''Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir'' (University Press of Florida) * Christopher Patton (translator), Christopher Patton ''Unlikeness Is Us: Fourteen from the Exeter Book'' (Gaspereau Press) * Mark Sarvas ''Memento Park: A Novel'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) * Jeffrey C. Stewart ''The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke'' (Oxford University Press) * William T. Vollmann ''Carbon Ideologies: Volume I, No Immediate Danger, Volume II, No Good Alternative'' (Viking Press, Viking) * G. Willow Wilson and Nico Leon ''Ms. Marvel Vol. 9: Teenage Wasteland'' (Marvel Comics) * Nathan Hare Lifetime Achievement Award * UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Editor/Publisher Award * Moor Mother/Camae Ayewa, Moor Mother Oral Literature Award

2020 to present

2020 * Reginald Dwayne Betts, ''Felon: Poems'' (W.W. Norton) * Sara Borjas, ''Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff'' (Noemi Press) * Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye, Tate Swindell, editors, ''Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman'' (City Lights) * Staceyann Chin, ''Crossfire: A Litany for Survival'' (Haymarket) * Kali Fajardo-Anstine, ''Sabrina & Corina: Stories'' (One World) * Tara Fickle, ''The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities'' (New York University Press) * Erika Lee, ''America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States'' (Basic Books) * Yōko Ogawa, Yoko Ogawa, ''The Memory Police'' (Pantheon) * Jake Skeets, ''Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers'' (Milkweed Editions) * George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker, ''They Called Us Enemy'' (Top Shelf Productions) * Ocean Vuong, ''On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous'' (Penguin) * De'Shawn Charles Winslow, ''In West Mills'' (Bloomsbury Publishing) * Albert Woodfox with Leslie George, ''Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope'' (Grove Press) * Lifetime Achievement: Eleanor W. Traylor * Editor Award: ''The Panopticon Review'', Kofi Natambu, editor * Publisher Award: Commune Editions, Jasper Bernes, Joshua Clover, and Juliana Spahr, editors * Oral Literature Award: Amalia Leticia Ortiz * Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: ''Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy'', edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll 2021 * Ayad Akhtar, ''Homeland Elegies'' (Little, Brown & Co.) * Maisy Card, ''These Ghosts Are Family'' (Simon & Schuster) * Anthony Cody, ''Borderland Apocrypha'' (Omnidawn Press) * Ben Ehrenreich, ''Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time'' (Counterpoint) * Johanna Fernández, ''The Young Lords: A Radical History'' (University of North Carolina Press) * Carolyn Forché, ''In the Lateness of the World: Poems'' (Penguin Press) * John Giorno, ''Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) * Cathy Park Hong, ''Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning'' (One World) * Randall Horton, '': Poems'' (University of Kentucky) * Gerald Horne, ''The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century'' (Monthly Review Press) * Robert P. Jones, ''White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity'' (Simon & Schuster) * Judy Juanita, ''Manhattan my ass, you’re in Oakland'' (Equidistance Press) * William Melvin Kelley (author), Aiki Kelley (illustrator), ''Dunfords Travels Everywheres'' (Anchor Books) * Lifetime Achievement: Maryemma Graham * Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: ''Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson'', by Shana Redmond * Anti-Censorship Award: ''Separated: Inside an American Tragedy'', by Jacob Soboroff 2022 * Spencer Ackerman, ''Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump'' (Viking) * Esther G. Belin, Jeff Burgland, Connie A. Jacobs, Anthony K. Webster, editors, ''The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature'' (University of Arizona Press) * Emma Brodie, ''Songs in Ursa Major'' (Knopf) * Daphne Brooks, ''Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound'' (Harvard University Press) * Myriam J. A. Chancy, ''What Storm, What Thunder'' (Tin House Books) * Francisco Goldman, ''Monkey Boy'' (Grove Press) * Zakiya Dalila Harris, ''The Other Black Girl: A Novel'' (Atria Books) * Fatima Shaik, ''Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood'' (The Historic New Orleans Collection) * Edwin Torres (poet), Edwin Torres, ''Quanundrum: [i will be your many angled thing]'' (Roof Books) * Truong Tran, ''Book of the Other: Small in Comparison'' (Kaya Press) * Mai Der Vang, ''Yellow Rain'' (Graywolf Press) * Phillip B. Williams, ''Mutiny'' (Penguin Books) * Michelle Zauner, ''Crying in H Mart: A Memoir'' (Knopf) * Lifetime Achievement: Gayl Jones * Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award: ''Sound Recording Technology and American Literature'', by Jessica E. Teague * Anti-Censorship Award: Jeffrey St. Clair * Editor/Publisher Award: Wave Books: Charlie Wright (Publisher) / Joshua Beckman (Editor in Chief)

References

{{reflist , refs= "The Before Columbus Foundation announces the American Book Awards"
(Index to lists of winners through 2006). Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ankn.uaf.edu). Retrieved July 7, 2012. American Book Awards, American literary awards Awards established in 1978 1978 establishments in the United States