NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Maxine Hong Kingston, Darryl Pinckney and the late bell hooks were among the authors honored this year by the a nonprofit co-founded by Ishmael Reed that celebrates multicultural literature.
Established in 1976, the Before Columbus Foundation each year presents American Book Awards to both fiction and nonfiction writers. Kingston, best known for her memoir 鈥淭he Woman Warrior,鈥� received a lifetime achievement prize. Pinckney was cited for his memoir 鈥淐ome Back in September,鈥� and hooks, who died in 2021, was given a special award for criticism.
On Tuesday, the foundation also announced awards for Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's novel 鈥淲hen We Were Birds,鈥� Leila Mottley's 鈥淣ightcrawling: A Novel,鈥� Everett Hoagland's poetry collection 鈥淭he Ways鈥� and Bojan Louis' 鈥淪inking Bell: Stories." Other winners included Edgar Gomez's memoir 鈥淗igh Risk Homosexual鈥�; Aidan Levy's biography of jazz great Sonny Rollins, 鈥淪axophone Colossus鈥�; Kelly Lytle Hern谩ndez's nonfiction "Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands"; and Javier Zamora's 鈥淪olito: A Memoir.鈥�
Previous recipients of American Book Awards include Gayl Jones, Ayah Akhtar and Ocean Vuong.
The Associated Press
