Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program honors Black writers in the United States and around the globe for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers.

Each fall, writers and publishers are invited to submit fiction, nonfiction and poetry books published that year. Panels of acclaimed writers serve as judges to select nominees, finalists and winners. A number of merit awards are also presented. Nominees are honored at the Legacy Awards ceremony, held the third Friday in October. The awards ceremony is hosted and organized by the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

The 2018 award honorees were announced in June.

Awards Categories

Legacy Award

The Legacy Awards, granted for fiction, nonfiction and poetry, are selected in a juried competition.

The 2018 award winners were Alain Mabanckou in fiction for Black Moses; Ladee Hubbard in debut fiction for The Talented Ribkins; Tiya Miles in nonfiction for The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits; and Evie Shockley in poetry for Semiautomatic.

North Star Award

The North Star Award pays homage to the significance of the North Star for enslaved Africans, who looked to it as a guide to freedom. The recipients of the award are individuals whose writing and/or service to the writing community serves as a beacon of brilliant accomplishment and as an inspiration to others.

The 2018 North Star award winner was Ntozake Shange, author of the Obie Award-winning choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Shange was presented with the award a week before her death.

Ella Baker Award

The Ella Baker Award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice.

There was no 2018 winner. The 2017 Ella Baker award winner was Congressman John Lewis.

Madam C.J. Walker Award

The Madam C.J. Walker Award, named for the pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist, recognizes exceptional innovation in supporting and sustaining Black literature.

The 2018 Madam C.J. Walker award winner was Dr. Charles Rowell, founder and editor of the literary journal Callaloo.

Award for College Writers

The Hurston/Wright Foundation honors excellence in writing by Black college students with the Award for College Writers. The award, sponsored by Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, is presented in the categories of fiction and poetry.

The 2018 Award for College Writers recipients were Desiree Evans in fiction and Christell Victoria Roach in poetry.

2018 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard

Nominees:

• What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Fiction

Winner:

• Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou

2 Finalists:

• The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees:

• What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
• The Tragedy of Brady Sims by Ernest J. Gaines
• Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani

Nonfiction

Winner:

• The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits by Tiya Miles

Finalists:

• Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education by Noliwe Rooks
• The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

Nominees:

• Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. by Danielle Allen
• Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy by Sheryll Cashin
• Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy

Poetry

Winner:

• Semiautomatic by Evie Shockley

Finalists:

• Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey
• Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

Nominees:

• City of Bones by Kwame Dawes
• Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
• In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae

2017 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson

Nominees:

• Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
• Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John

Fiction

Winner:

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

2 Finalists:

• The Loss of All Lost Things by Amina Gautier
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Nominees:

• The Mother by Yvvette Edwards
• The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden
• Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross

2 Finalists:

• The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, And Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
• In The Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe

Nominees:

• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

Poetry

Winner:

• Bestiary by Donika Kelly

2 Finalists:

• play dead by francine j. harris
• Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams

Nominees:

• Third Voice by Ruth Ellen Kocher
• Rapture by Sjohnna McCray
• The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

2016 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye

Nominees

• The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
• The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

Fiction

Winner:

• Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

2 Finalists:

• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
• The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips

Nominees:

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
• Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk

2 Finalists:

• The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
• Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne

Nominees:

• Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill
• Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We “Catch” Mental Illness by Harriet A. Washington
• The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins

Poetry

Winner:

• Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis

2 Finalists:

• Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Nominees:

• How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
• It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson
• Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis

2015 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

Finalists

• An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
• Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

Nominees

• The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani
• Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah
• The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed

Nonfiction

Winner

• Not For Everyday Use by Elizabeth Nunez

Finalists

• Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow
• This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb, Jr.

Nominees

• Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen
• Malcolm X at Oxford Union by Saladin Ambar
• Losing Our Way by Bob Herbert

Poetry

Winner

• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Finalists

• Revising the Storm by Geffrey Davis
• King Me by Roger Reeves

Nominees

• We Don't Know Any Gangsters by Brian Gilmore
• Digest by Gregory Pardlo
• The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon by Willie Perdomo

2014 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Finalists

• See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid
• The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson

Nominees

• Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen
• The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
• The Gospel According to Cane by Courttia Newland

Nonfiction

Winner

• Ebony & Ivory by Craig Wilder

Finalists

• Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch
• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees

• Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sheri Booker
• The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom  and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones
• Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau

Poetry

Winner

• Darktown Follies by Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Finalists

• Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey
• The Cineaste: Poems by A. Van Jordan

Nominees

• Silverchest by Carl Phillips
• The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka
• What We Ask of Flesh by Remica L. Bingham

2013 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Nominees

• Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson
• Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden
• The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
• The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
• A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards

Nonfiction

Winner

• The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics by Fredrick Harris

Nominees

• American Lynching by Ashraf H. A. Rushdy
• Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
• Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson
• Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams
• There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe

Poetry

Winner

• The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton

Nominees

• But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
• me and Nina by Monica Hand

2012 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Finalists

• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
• Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Nominees

• Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• You Are Free by Danzy Senna

Nonfiction

Winner

• Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Finalists

• Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
• One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina

Nominees

• My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir by Mark Whitaker
• Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry

Poetry

Winner

• the new black by Evie Shockley

Nominees

• Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay
• Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

2011 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans

Finalists

• Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden
• Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Nominees

• How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories by Tiphanie Yanique
• How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
• Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story

Nonfiction

Winner

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Finalists

• Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation by Rawn James Jr.
• The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 by Lawrence Jackson

Nominees

• Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell
• John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
• Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams

Poetry

Winner

• Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Elizabeth Alexander

Nominees

• Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
• Skin, Inc: Identity Repair Poems by Thomas Sayers Ellis

2010 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Percival Everett

Finalists

• Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Nominees

• Big Machine by Victor Lavalle
• Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
• The Trial of Robert Mugabe by Chielo Zona Eze

Nonfiction

Winner

• Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley

Finalists

• Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus
• Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood

Nominees

• More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
• Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial by James A. Miller
• The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by Gwen Ifill

Poetry

Winners

• Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Rita Dove
• Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems by Haki R. Madhubuti

Nominees

• Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem by Mitchell L.H Douglas
• Gospel by Samiya Bashir

2009 Winners and Finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

Finalists

• Holding Pattern: Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
• Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees

• Blood Colony by Tananarive Due
• Song Yet Sung by James McBride
• Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke

Nonfiction

Winner

• Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid by Frank B. Wilderson

Finalists

• Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings
• The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Nominees

• Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth- Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
• Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power by Marcus Reeves
• The Agitator’s Daughter: A Memoir of Four Generations of One Extraordinary African- American Family by Sheryll Cashin

Poetry

• The Headless Saints by Myronn Hardy
• Please by Jericho Brown
• Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

2008 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• She's Gone by Kwame Dawes

Nominees

• Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard
• Them by Nathan McCall

Fiction

Winner

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Finalists

• Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
• The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé

Nominees

• Measuring Time: A Novel by Helon Habila
• The Guyanese Wander by Jan Carew
• The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi

Nonfiction

Winner

• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwige Danticat

Finalists

• Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane A. Diouf
• On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century by Sherrilyn Ifill

Nominees

• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil and the African Slave Trade by Gerald Horne
• The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why by Jabari Asim

Poetry

Winner

• Bouquet of Hungers by Kyle G. Dargan

Nominees

• Conversion by Remica L. Bingham
• Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan

2007 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Nominees

• Get Down: Stories by Asali Solomon
• Unburnable by Marie-Elena John

Fiction

Winner

• All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones

Finalists

• Dominion: A Novel by Calvin Baker
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nominees

• Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin
• Nowhere is a Place by Bernice L. McFadden
• Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa’Thiong’o

Nonfiction

Winner

• Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai

Finalists

• The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora by Louis Chude-Sokei
• The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging by Kym Ragusa

Nominees

• Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley by Christopher John Farley
• BookMarks: Reading in Black and White by Karla F.C. Holloway
• The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America by Walter C. Rucker

Poetry

• Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith
• The Architecture of Language by Quincy Troupe
• Wind in a Box by Terrance Hayes

2006 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas

Nominees

• Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana
• Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

Fiction

Winner

• My Jim: A Novel by Nancy Rawles

Finalists

• Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham
• The Untelling by Tayari Jones

Nominees

• Dancing in the Dark by Caryl Phillips
• Joplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due
• Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate

Nonfiction

Winner

• Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin

Finalists

• Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle
• Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists by Lisa E. Farrington

Nominees

• My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry
• Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality by Dwight A. McBride
• Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition by Cheryl A. Wall

Contemporary Fiction

Winner

• The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries by Clyde W. Ford

Nominees

• Love on the Dotted Line by David E. Talbert
• Who Does She Think She is? by Benilde Little

2005 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• GraceLand by Chris Abani

Nominees

• The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips
• The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan

Fiction

Winner

• Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? by Maryse Condé

Finalists

• The Dew Breaker by Edwige Danticat
• The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda

Nominees

• American Desert by Percival Everett
• Links by Nuruddin Farah
• The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley

Nonfiction

Winner

• Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis DeVeaux

Finalists

• A Continent for the Taking by Howard French
• The End of Blackness by Debra J. Dickerson

Nominees

• Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge by Ellis Cose
• The Black Interior by Elizabeth Alexander
• The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream by Sheryll Cashin

Contemporary Fiction

• A Woman's Worth by Tracy Price-Thompson
• Bling by Erica Kennedy
• Shifting Through Neutral by Bridgett M. Davis

2004 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Finalist

• A Place Between Stations by Stephanie Allen
• Knee-Deep in Wonder by April Reynolds

Nominee

• Daughter by Asha Bandele
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
• Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks

Fiction

Winner

• Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson

Finalists

• A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
• The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke

Nominees

• Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase-Riboud
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

Nonfiction

Winner

• In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Wil Haygood

Finalists

• Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity by E. Patrick Johnson
• Mandela, Mobutu and Me by Lynne Duke

Nominees

• Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful by Susan Fales-Hill
• Somebody’s Someone by Regina Louise
• Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

2003 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

Finalists

• A Little Piece Of Sky by Nicole Bailey-Williams
• Fifth Born by Zelda Lockhart

Nominees

• Gigantic by Marc Nesbitt
• River Woman by Donna Hemans
• Song of the Water Saints by Nelly Rosario

Fiction

Winner

• The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda

Finalists

• Douglass’ Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• The Ecstatic by Victor Lavalle

Nominees

• Discretion by Elizabeth Nunez
• Water Street by Crystal Wilkinson
• Without a Name and Under the Tongue by Yvonne Vera

Nonfiction

Winner

• Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies by Elizabeth McHenry

Finalists

• Passed On: African American Mourning Stories by Karla FC Holloway
• The Herndons: An Atlanta Family by Carole Merritt

Nominees

• American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America by Leon E. Wynter
• Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius by Lawrence Jackson

2002 Winners and Finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Gabriel’s Story by David Anthony Durham

Finalists

• Greenwichtown by Joyce Palmer
• The Red Moon by Kuwana Haulsey

Nominees

• Breathing Room by Patricia Elam
• Break Any Woman Down by Dana Johnson
• The Dying Ground by Nichelle D. Tramble

Fiction

Winner

• Erasure by Percival Everett

Finalists

• Bombingham by Anthony Grooms
• October Suite by Maxine Clair

Nominees

• Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
• He Sleeps by Reginald McKnight
• The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden

Nonfiction

Winner

• In the Shadow of a Saint:  A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy by Ken Wiwa

Finalists

• On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A’Lelia Bundles
• The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 by Paul Robeson Jr.

Nominees

• Impossible Witnesses: Truths, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony by Dwight McBride
• Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story by Michael Datcher
• Salvation: Black People and Love by bell hooks

External links

• Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, official website