Damon Young took home the Thurber Prize for American Humor for his memoir What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Young’s debut book “chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him,” according to publisher Ecco. It was previously a finalist for the NAACP Image Award and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award. A reviewer for Kirkus wrote, “Young sharply conveys important truths with powerful effect.”
On Twitter, Young reacted to his win, writing, “It was a tremendous honor to even be considered in a category with [Kira Jane Buxton] and [Dave Barry] (whose books were sublime). And I want to thank the @ThurberHouse and the judges for choosing my collection of diabolically ashy recollections. Also, I spent the prize money at Red Lobster (bought 150 Ultimate Feasts) so don’t ask for none.”
It was a tremendous honor to even be considered in a category with @KiraJaneWrites and @rayadverb (whose books were sublime). And I want to thank the @ThurberHouse and the judges for choosing my collection of diabolically ashy recollections. https://t.co/lE0Ku2ZFRV
— Damon Young (@DamonYoungVSB) May 22, 2021
In a 2019 interview with the New York Times, Young, a co-founder of the Very Smart Brothas website, said he didn’t want his book “to encapsulate my existence as very traumatic and downtrodden.”
“So much of the national dialogue about race deals with either terrible trauma or Black excellence,” he said. “I was more interested in the space in between, because that’s where I exist. So the challenge was finding a space between sensationalizing and also documenting and contextualizing.”
The Thurber Prize was first awarded in 1997. Previous winners have included Trevor Noah for Born a Crime and Patricia Lockwood for Priestdaddy.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
