Craig Taylor and Threa Almontaser are the winners of this year’s Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prizes, announced at a virtual ceremony Friday evening. 
Taylor took home the nonfiction award for New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time, a portrait of the city told through the perspectives of ordinary people who live there. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “a compelling portrait of New York and a must-read for residents and visitors alike.”
Almontaser won the fiction and poetry award for The Wild Fox of Yemen, her debut collection of poems. The book has already won the Maya Angelou Book Award, and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry.
"Both winners of the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize bring our complex and beloved city to life on the page," Linda E. Johnson, the library’s president and CEO, said. "We applaud Threa Almontaser and Craig Taylor alongside all the nominees, as well as the librarians and library staff who champion literature in every neighborhood across Brooklyn."
Finalists and winners of the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize are selected by librarians in the borough. The award was established in 2015 by a group of fundraisers and volunteers called the Brooklyn Eagles.
Past winners of the award have included Idra Novey for Ways to Disappear, Tressie McMillan Cottom for Thick: And Other Essays, and Miriam Toews for Women Talking.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
