Discover their stories.
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2023 Lifetime Achievement
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
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2023 Fiction
Horse
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2023 Fiction
The Family Chao
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2023 Poetry
Alive at the End of the World
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2023 Nonfiction
Half American
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2022 Poetry
The Renunciations
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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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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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2021 Poetry
Obit
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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 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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2019 Nonfiction
The War Before the War
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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 Nonfiction
Hidden Figures
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2017 Fiction
The Fortunes
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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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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 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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2015 Nonfiction
A Tale of Two Plantations
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2015 Fiction
A Brief History of Seven Killings
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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 Lifetime Achievement
Wole Soyinka
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2013 Nonfiction
Far From the Tree
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2013 Fiction
My Favorite Warlord
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2013 Fiction
The Yellow Birds
Highlights from the 2023 Awards Ceremony
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 88 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-
Cleveland Book Week 2023: From Cover to Cover
October 16, 2023
The eighth annual Cleveland Book Week brought five literary powerhouses — poet Saeed Jones, historian Matthew F. Delmont, novelists Geraldine Brooks and Lan Samantha Chang and…
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REVIEW: Colson Whitehead’s Pen Sizzles With “Crook Manifesto”
September 15, 2023
by Charles Ellenbogen Ray Carney has a problem any parent will recognize. The protagonist of “Crook Manifesto” – the second…
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Introducing Our Class of 2023
April 3, 2023
The Cleveland Foundation today announced the winners of its 88th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. The 2023 recipients of the only…
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“Rise and Rebuild” Documentary Puts Spotlight On Fight for Black Wealth
March 17, 2023
Filmmakers Leslia Asako Gladsjo and Sam Pollard wanted to make a documentary about the Tulsa Massacre, the two days in…
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Poet Adrian Matejka to Announce 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Award Winners
March 7, 2023
Join us Monday, April 3 as award-winning poet Adrian Matejka announces the new class of Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners. Matejka won…
Educational Resources
View all resources-
Reading Ohio’s Black Newspapers in the Nineteenth Century
Level: Young Adult
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Redacting and Reclaiming: Teaching Donika Kelly’s “The Renunciations”
Book: The Renunciations
Level: Young Adult -
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
