Discover their stories.
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2025 Nonfiction
The United States Governed By Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery
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2025 Poetry
Yard Show
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2025 Lifetime Achievement
Yusef Komunyakaa
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2025 Memoir
Feeding Ghosts
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2025 Fiction
Colored Television
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2024 Poetry
From From
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2024 Fiction
Tremor
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2024 Nonfiction
The Rediscovery of America
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2024 Lifetime Achievement
Maxine Hong Kingston
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2023 Fiction
The Family Chao
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2023 Lifetime Achievement
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
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2023 Poetry
Alive at the End of the World
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2023 Fiction
Horse
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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 Nonfiction
All That She Carried
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2022 Fiction
The Trees
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2021 Lifetime Achievement
Samuel R. Delany
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2021 Poetry
Obit
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2021 Nonfiction
Tacky’s Revolt
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2021 Nonfiction
Memorial Drive
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2021 Fiction
Deacon King Kong
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2020 Fiction
The Old Drift
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2020 Nonfiction
Gods of the Upper Air
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2020 Lifetime Achievement
Eric Foner
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2020 Poetry
Deaf Republic
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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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2019 Fiction
There There
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2018 Lifetime Achievement
N. Scott Momaday
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2018 Nonfiction
Bunk
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2018 Fiction
Sing, Unburied, Sing
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2018 Poetry
In the Language of My Captor
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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 Fiction
The Jazz Palace
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2016 Lifetime Achievement
Orlando Patterson
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2016 Nonfiction
The Gay Revolution
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2016 Poetry
Heaven
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2016 Nonfiction
What the Eye Hears
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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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2015 Poetry
Hard Love Province
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 90 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
Highlights from the 90th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
Recent News
View all news-
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards: Book to Screen Adaptations
January 8, 2026
Some of the world’s most powerful stories honored by the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards have leapt from the page to the screen….
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Anisfield-Wolf Book Club: December 2025 Selection
January 5, 2026
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and…
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Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Holiday Gift Guide
December 12, 2025
Are you looking for the perfect gift for the readers on your list? Look no further! We have compiled a…
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Anisfield-Wolf Book Club: November 2025 Selection
November 24, 2025
Explore thoughtful book discussion questions, exclusive author content, and thoughts on the winning books from AWBA program director, jurors and…
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Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Marks 90 Years of Truth-Telling Through Literature with a Citywide Celebration, Free and Open to the Public
July 31, 2025
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (AWBA), the only national juried prize for literature that addresses racism and diversity, proudly marks its…
Educational Resources
View all resources-
Teaching Gods of the Upper Air
Level: Young Adult
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Hidden Figures – Women of the Civil Rights Movement
Book: Hidden Figures
Level: Young Adult -
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
