Discover their stories.
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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 Fiction
The Old Drift
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2020 Lifetime Achievement
Eric Foner
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2020 Poetry
Deaf Republic
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2020 Nonfiction
Gods of the Upper Air
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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 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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2017 Poetry
Olio
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2017 Lifetime Achievement
Isabel Allende
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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
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2013 Fiction
Kind One
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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
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2012 Lifetime Achievement
Arnold Rampersad
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2011 Lifetime Achievement
John Edgar Wideman
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2011 Nonfiction
The Warmth of Other Suns
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2011 Nonfiction
Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
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2011 Fiction
Great House
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-
“Landfall” Puts Spotlight on Puerto Rico Residents’ Leadership In The Aftermath of Hurricane Maria
April 8, 2021
Hurricane Maria scythed more than 3,000 souls on Puerto Rico, according to the official death toll. Among that number was…
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Introducing Our Class of 2021
April 5, 2021
The Cleveland Foundation today unveiled the winners of its 86th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. The 2021 recipients of the only…
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Add Our New Podcast, The Asterisk*, to Your Playlist
February 12, 2021
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards is proud to present The Asterisk*, a new podcast hosted by Karen R. Long, manager of…
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Bill To Create “Toni Morrison Day” Headed To Vote In Ohio State Senate
November 25, 2020
“Quiet as it is kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941 . . . Not even the…
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Rita Dove Featured On New Podcast By Akron Symphony Orchestra
November 19, 2020
Fans of Rita Dove’s 2009 poetry collection “Sonata Mulattica” can dive into the story behind the poems in a new podcast produced…
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
@AnisfieldWolfEpisode 5 of The Asterisk* podcast is now live featuring novelist and 2017 Anisfield-Wolf award winner Peter Ho Davies. Dive in: https://t.co/wgN0JIksgB
For more on McBride’s novel and the path that led him back to AWBA, read here: https://t.co/KmT8vAD7ol
“’Deacon King Kong’ is robust and funny, confronting tragedy with an ebullient comic spirit, ‘pulling its punches’ in unexpected ways that repudiate disaster and resound just right.” — @JoyceCarolOates, AWBA juror
A fictionalized version of that church anchors and animates the novel, a rollicking tale set spinning in 1969 by an elderly, alcoholic deacon who crosses a courtyard full of neighbors to shoot an ear off the most notorious drug dealer in the history of the local housing projects.
The novelist, musician, composer and screenwriter was born in 1957 to Ruth McBride, the eighth of her 12 children. His mother and father, the Rev. Andrew McBride, had started the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church, a small place that still figures prominently in their son’s life.
Our last feature of our 2021 winners for announcement week!
James McBride has won this year’s Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, becoming a rare two-time winner, for “Deacon King Kong.” #AWBA2021
A quick thread on this book + why we selected it: https://t.co/fTOy4lRbfo
