The Before Columbus Foundation announced the winners of the 2024 American Book Awards, with R.F. Kuang and Debra Magpie Earling among the authors celebrated for “outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.”
Kuang was given an award for her novel Yellowface, while Earling was honored for her novel The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. Other works of fiction to receive the prizes include Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad, and A Shimmer of Red by Valerie Wilson Wesley.
Gregg Hecimovich won an award for The Life and Time of Hannah Crafts, alongside other nonfiction titles Flesh and Spirit by Felipe Luciano, Orphan Bachelors by Fae Myenne Ng, Dark Days by Roger Reeves, Changing the Commons by John N. Roberts, Merze Tate by Barbara D. Savage, The 272 by Rachel L. Swarns, Easily Slip Into Another World by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards, California Against the Sea by Rosanna Xia, Please Wait by the Coatroom by John Yau, and Toussaint Louverture, written by C.L.R. James and adapted and illustrated by Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee.
Two poets were given prizes: Paul S. Flores for We Still Be and Monica Youn for From From. Playwright Jessica Hagedorn was given a lifetime achievement award.
The American Book Awards were established in 1978. Previous winners have included Sandra Cisneros for The House on Mango Street, Edwidge Danticat for The Farming of Bones, and Naomi Klein for This Changes Everything.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
