Discover their stories.
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2022 Lifetime Achievement
Ishmael Reed
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2022 Nonfiction
Of Fear and Strangers
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2022 Fiction
The Trees
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2022 Nonfiction
All That She Carried
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2022 Poetry
The Renunciations
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2021 Poetry
Obit
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2021 Nonfiction
Memorial Drive
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2021 Fiction
Deacon King Kong
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2021 Nonfiction
Tacky’s Revolt
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2021 Lifetime Achievement
Samuel R. Delany
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2020 Poetry
Deaf Republic
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2020 Nonfiction
Gods of the Upper Air
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2020 Fiction
The Old Drift
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2020 Lifetime Achievement
Eric Foner
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2019 Nonfiction
The War Before the War
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2019 Fiction
There There
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2019 Poetry
Wade in the Water
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2019 Lifetime Achievement
Sonia Sanchez
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2018 Lifetime Achievement
N. Scott Momaday
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2018 Poetry
In the Language of My Captor
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2018 Fiction
Sing, Unburied, Sing
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2018 Nonfiction
Bunk
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2017 Poetry
Olio
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2017 Lifetime Achievement
Isabel Allende
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2017 Fiction
The Association of Small Bombs
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2017 Nonfiction
Hidden Figures
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2017 Fiction
The Fortunes
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2016 Nonfiction
The Gay Revolution
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2016 Fiction
The Jazz Palace
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2016 Nonfiction
What the Eye Hears
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2016 Poetry
Heaven
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2016 Lifetime Achievement
Orlando Patterson
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2015 Nonfiction
A Tale of Two Plantations
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2015 Fiction
A Brief History of Seven Killings
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2015 Poetry
Hard Love Province
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2015 Poetry
The New Testament
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2015 Lifetime Achievement
David Brion Davis
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2014 Fiction
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
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2014 Fiction
The Big Smoke
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2014 Nonfiction
My Promised Land
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2014 Lifetime Achievement
Wilson Harris
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2014 Lifetime Achievement
George Lamming
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2013 Fiction
My Favorite Warlord
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2013 Fiction
The Yellow Birds
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2013 Fiction
Kind One
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2013 Lifetime Achievement
Wole Soyinka
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2013 Nonfiction
Far From the Tree
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2012 Fiction
Half-Blood Blues
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2012 Nonfiction
American Oracle
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2012 Nonfiction
Less Than Human
Our Mission
The only juried American book prize focusing on works that address racism and diversity.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity. For 86 years, the distinguished books earning Anisfield-Wolf prizes have opened and challenged our minds. Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book awards in 1935, in honor of her father, John Anisfield, and husband, Eugene Wolf, to reflect her family’s passion for social justice.
Proudly presented by the Cleveland Foundation
Recent News
View all news-
In “Shine Bright,” Music Critic Danyel Smith Gets On Stage And Shimmers
May 6, 2022
In “Shine Bright,” music critic Danyel Smith makes it plain she wants “credit to be given where credit is due.” Subtitled “A Very…
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Joseph Earl Thomas Named New Anisfield-Wolf Fellow At Cleveland State University Poetry Center
May 4, 2022
Joseph Earl Thomas expects to earn his doctorate in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024, but that road…
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Introducing Our Class of 2022
April 5, 2022
The Cleveland Foundation today unveiled the winners of its 87th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. The 2022 recipients of the only…
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Diversifying the Beer Industry “One Pint at A Time”
March 30, 2022
A 2014 road trip to a North Carolina brewery sparked the idea for Aaron Hosé’s film, “One Pint at a…
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Author Daisy Hernández On Writing Personal Stories And What’s Next After “The Kissing Bug”
March 27, 2022
For most of her childhood, professor Daisy Hernández, believed her aunt Dora Capunay Sosa died from eating a contaminated apple….
Educational Resources
View all resources-
The Music of Tommy Orange’s There There
Book: There There
Level: Child -
Teaching Kevin Young’s Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Book: Bunk
Level: Young Adult -
Teaching Diversity in the Eras of Plague and Pandemic
Book: Far From the Tree
Level: Young Adult -
Reading Anisfield-Wolf Winners’ Picture Books
Level: Child
Join the conversation on Twitter
@AnisfieldWolf“It’s hard not to be aware of the Civil War when you grow up in a place like Mississippi.”
– Natasha Trethewey
Full episode of #TheAsterisk* available now: https://t.co/5FjEim7HfB https://t.co/4IvF3vEaQd
Don’t have time for a full episode? Speed readers can dig into our podcast transcripts of both season 1 and season 2 interviews: https://t.co/oRR9D607Sh #TheAsterisk https://t.co/IpkPhVN8Ux
We end each episode of The Asterisk* by asking authors what they’re reading now. Hear a snippet of poet Natasha Trethewey’s answer from episode 5 and listen to the full conversation: https://t.co/5FjEim7HfB https://t.co/Sci95fyn5s
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Check out the INTER|URBAN featuring @AnisfieldWolf winners
https://t.co/wX29pdKq2B
Inside the Push to Diversify the Book Business: For generations, America’s major publishers focused almost entirely on white readers. Now a new cadre of executives like Lisa Lucas is trying to open up the industry | @nytimes https://t.co/GHBcqsT8mq https://t.co/ofRpmjFu1q
NEW EPISODE POLL: Which Anisfield-Wolf award-winning poet will be featured on #TheAsterisk* in a new episode tomorrow?
(Hint: one of these poets has already been featured!)
