Celebrate Cleveland Book Week this year with free online streaming events highlighting nationally recognized literary talent.
Upcoming Cleveland Book Week Events
View all upcoming events-
CIFF STREAMS + AWBA Film Selections
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In Conversation: Charles King + Steven Pinker
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Sudanese-American Poet Safia Elhillo and Twelve Literary Arts on “The Weight and Opportunity of Living in the Hyphen”
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Global Cleveland Sister Cities Conference: Namwali Serpell
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The 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Ceremony Televised Special
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Global Cleveland Sister Cities Conference: Ilya Kaminsky
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The City Club of Cleveland Forum: Eric Foner
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Great Lakes African American Writers Conference: Pearl Cleage Keynote
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 85 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
Discover their stories.
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1998 Nonfiction
The Black Notebooks
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1976 Nonfiction
The War Against the Jews
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1989 Nonfiction
The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers
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1939 Nonfiction
The Negro College Graduate
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2001 Lifetime Achievement
Lucille Clifton
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1959 Nonfiction
Stride Toward Freedom
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1996 Lifetime Achievement
Dorothy West
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1974 Nonfiction
Justice in South Africa
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1991 Nonfiction
African Ark
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2015 Nonfiction
A Tale of Two Plantations
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1965 Nonfiction
Mississippi
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2019 Lifetime Achievement
Sonia Sanchez
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1972 Nonfiction
The Healing of a Nation
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1976 Nonfiction
The Myth of the Jewish Race
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2001 Nonfiction
Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner
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1978 Nonfiction
The Legacy of Malthus
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2009 Fiction
The Plague of Doves
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2020 Poetry
Deaf Republic
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2011 Fiction
The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
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1988 Fiction
A Sport of Nature
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1994 Nonfiction
W.E.B. Du Bois
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1967 Nonfiction
The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture
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1956 Nonfiction
A Manual of Intergroup Relations
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1954 Fiction
Simple Takes a Wife
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2019 Nonfiction
The War Before the War
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2019 Fiction
There There
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2003 Nonfiction
A Problem From Hell
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2017 Lifetime Achievement
Isabel Allende
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2014 Fiction
The Big Smoke
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1966 Nonfiction
Manchild in the Promised Land
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1982 Nonfiction
People of the Sacred Mountain
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1946 Nonfiction
Black Metropolis
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2019 Lifetime Achievement
Sonia Sanchez
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1950 Nonfiction
Your Most Humble Servant
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1964 Nonfiction
The New World of Negro Americans
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1974 Nonfiction
Justice in South Africa
Recent News
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Virtual Cleveland Book Week Kicks Off September 29
August 26, 2020
The fifth annual literary celebration returns this year from Sept. 29-Oct. 4, and will celebrate our 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards…
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John Lewis Hopes To Encourage “Good Trouble” In New Documentary
July 16, 2020
One of the most surprising things about “Good Trouble,” a new documentary on Georgia Congressman John Lewis’ six decades in…
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New Televised Special Will Celebrate Our 2020 Award Recipients Oct 1
June 26, 2020
Join us October 1 to toast the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards authors and their brilliant books. WVIZ/PBS ideastream will produce,…
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Anisfield-Wolf Winning Authors Nab Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
April 30, 2020
Four Anisfield-Wolf Book Award-winning authors — including two from our 2020 class — took home hardware from this year’s Los Angeles…
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“We Are Radical Monarchs” Documentary Shows Young Girls Taking Flight In The Social Justice Realm
April 24, 2020
“I was meant to be here,” 11-year-old Amia said as she twirled around the state capitol building in Sacramento, California….
Educational Resources
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Discovering “Reading-in-Place” — the Act of Joining Stories and Geography
Level: Young Adult
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Exploring Magical Thinking Within “Olio” and “The Second Founding”
Book: Olio
Level: Young Adult -
Taking A Deep Dive Into “Sing Unburied Sing”
Book: Sing, Unburied, Sing
Level: Young Adult -
Discussing The Complexities Of Citizenship Within “Half Of A Yellow Sun”
Book: Half of a Yellow Sun
Level: Young Adult
Support the Cleveland community by purchasing your Anisfield-Wolf books at these local sellers
Appletree Books, an independent bookstore established in Cleveland Heights, offers an eclectic, well-curated selection of new book titles in multiple genres for both children and adults.
Loganberry Books is an independently owned and operated bookstore in the historic Larchmere neighborhood, featuring a carefully curated collection of new, used and rare books.
Mac’s Backs is an independent bookstore located in the Coventry neighborhood, and home to three floors of new and used classics, mysteries, science fiction, contemporary fiction and non-fiction books and magazines.
Visible Voice is a bookstore with that lost independent feel in the Tremont neighborhood—a relaxed, inviting environment conducive to discovery, where the books marginalized by commercial concerns have a home.
Join the conversation on Twitter
@AnisfieldWolfOur DOPE IS DEATH filmmaker conversation is now live on our YouTube channel! Listen in as director Mia Donovan and film subject Cleo Silvers talk with moderator Eric Siler. https://t.co/KtjJGgl7r8 #AWBA2020 #CBW2020 https://t.co/U1sWCATKZY
TONIGHT — listen as Charles King (“Gods of the Upper Air”) joins Anisfield-Wolf juror Steven Pinker to discuss King’s story of “how a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century.” Get an email reminder here: https://t.co/ogCRsBPJ4c
Join us today for CIFF alum favorite @GOODLUCKSOUP as part of the CIFF Streams + @AnisfieldWolf Book Awards #CBW2020 partnership! Register for your free film + filmmaker conversation access code here: https://t.co/uVCgIMX3ou https://t.co/oxefnnOdUq
#CLE Book Week continues! Catch 2020 @AnisfieldWolf winner @DavidLSmith_Iam discussing his new book during a free, online conversation at @CWRUInamori at 12:45pm on 9/30! There’s still time to register via: https://t.co/Lteo8GWrKD #AWBA2020 #CBW2020 https://t.co/Y2cmP2w7pI
On 10/4 you’ll have your pick from over 14 short films, from 5 to 29 minutes, all with a social justice theme.
Shorts program 1: https://t.co/XCN1RQnlly
Shorts program 2: https://t.co/Qm73imJhlh
#CBW2020 https://t.co/IsRiZksIK5
On 10/3 you can stream WE ARE THE RADICAL MONARCHS, @lindagknowlton‘s doc on the social justice troop’s first year in Oakland. An interview with Knowlton and a few Monarch alum follows the film.
Get streaming access here: https://t.co/YiAOFyp39o #CBW2020
