The quiet before the show begins: Cipriani Wall Street, being set for the 75th anniversary winners’ ceremony for the US National Book Awards. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
The 75th US National Book Awards, in a Time of Worry
Music, Comedy, Concern
Hours before Penguin Random House’s James author Percival Everett won the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, the roughly 800 publishing-industry revelers at the benefit dinner rose to the occasion of this award program’s 75th winners’ ceremony. It took at least four iterations of “Esteemed guests, please take your seats” before the boisterous black-tied benefit dinner attendees worked out where their seats were and sank into them for the opening of the show.
Not only was the crowd’s joyous noise level seemingly higher than in past years, but music was added to the evening’s format: Jon Batiste had two sets at his piano, while Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon was on-hand to supply emcee-humor with gracious self-deprecation.
The National Book Foundation, chaired by David Steinberger, continued to evolve the evening’s format this year, with dinner preceding the two lifetime achievement awards as well as the five categories of book-award winners. As usual, great whoops of excitement went up from various publishers’ tables as shortlistees were announced, followed by thunderous applause for winners.
‘Hard Times Are Coming’
National Book Foundation executive director Ruth Dickey as seen on a screen speaking at the 75th anniversary National Book Awards program at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
What may have been most memorable about the program’s 75th anniversary is that it coincided with the week’s busy efforts of a second Trump administration making its own show of daily cabinet announcements. As we wrote before the program began, Donald Trump has threatened to sue Penguin Random House and The New York Times for billions of dollars over what a warning letter calls “false and defamatory statements” by journalists and authors.
Related article: ‘The 75th US National Book Awards, in a Time of Worry.’ Image: National Book Foundation, Beowulf Sheehan
By the time Steinberger had introduced the foundation’s executive director, Ruth Dickey, she was adamant in her thanks for all who work with and support the program’s outreach and educational initiatives, but she also was ready to sound a George RR Martin tone, as well: “Hard times are coming,” Dickey said, “when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives as we witness and battle mounting book bans and attacks on free expression.
“We know that hard times are not only coming but they are here already, and we all want and need the perspectives, possibilities, and empathy that books can inspire.
“We must come together to stand up for books for the next 75 years and beyond,” Dickey said, pointing out that the funds raised by the dinner and other efforts of the program, have made it possible to “distribute more than two million new books to young people and families living in public housing communities. And over the past five years,” she said, “we’ve brought free books and free program events with National Book Award-honored writers to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”
Lifetime Achievement
Politically-tinged commentary is never absent at the National Book Awards, but this year there were more such remarks throughout the evening.
W. Paul Coates, left, receives his National Book Foundation Literarian Award from author Walter Mosley. Image: NBF, Nathalie Schueller
W. Paul Coates, accepting the National Book Foundation‘s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, was praised by Walter Mosley, who said, “We’ve published together, introduced each other at various times.
“I love politics. I admire him. But most of all, I respect how he has imbibed the harsh liquor of true citizenship and survived. In other words, his life and work gives hope to anyone who would dare to explore the dark spaces between the lines.”
Barbara Kingsolver accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2024 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Image: NBF, Beowulf Sheehan
Barbara Kingsolver, accepting the 2024 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, said, “Artists get called a lot of dreamy things.
“We’re lighthouses. We’re visionaries. We’re soothers of the savage breast. Maybe.
“But I think we’re at our best when we’re disruptors, when we grapple with self-absorption and the lazy belief that ‘my best interests are everybody’s best interests.’ We get to crack people open, what Doris Lessing called ‘unselfing.’
“We use our best, beautiful tricks to lure people into letting go of themselves for a little while so they can look into the soul of another human. Because that empathy, my friends, is our salvation.”
Category Winners in the 2024 US National Book Awards
In listing this year’s five category winners of the United States’ National Book Awards, we’ll refer you to our shortlist story from which each of those honors is drawn.
Fiction
Percival Everett, the author of James (Penguin Random House / Doubleday)
Percival Everett. Image: NBF, Nathalie Schueller
Percival Everett, the author of James (Penguin Random House / Doubleday)
Everett is a distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California, and was a finalist for the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Trees. His Dr. No was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Award. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay.
Nonfiction
Jason De León, Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling (Penguin Random House / Viking)
Jason De León. Image: NBF, Nathalie Schueller
A professor of anthropology and Chicana/o studies, De León is director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He’s also executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a 501(c)(3) research, arts, and education collective that seeks to raise awareness about migration issues globally while also assisting families of missing migrants reunite with their loved ones. He is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and author of The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail.
Poetry
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Something About Living (University of Akron Press)
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. Image: NBF, Nathalie Schueller
The Palestinian-American poet and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a finalist for a CLMP Firecracker Award, and Something About Living won the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry. In speaking about her work at the National Book Awards program, she talked about the importance of writers who have come before her and helped her, after seeing “books where Muslims were the villains … to finally write a story where we’re the heroes.” She went on to say, “Dehumanization of Arabs and Islamophobia has been rising more than ever in this past year to justify the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Translated Literature
Yáng Shuang-zi, Taiwan Travelogue, translated from Mandarin by Lin King (Graywolf Press)
Yáng Shuang-zi, left, author of ‘Taiwan Travelogue,’ with translator Lin King. Image: Nathalie Schueller
Author Yáng Shuang-zi writes manga, essays, fiction, and video-game scripts, as well as literary criticism. In addition to English, her work has been translated into Japanese and French. The Taipei-based translator and writer Lin King has won the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She translates from Mandarin and Japanese into English, and holds a BA from Princeton and an MFA from Columbia.
It was pointed out by the Translated Literature jury chair Jhumpa Lahiri, in reference to Graywolf Press’ publication of Taiwan Travelogue, that independent and small presses are particularly important in getting translated work into the marketplace.
It’s also worth noting that in February, we reported the news that the National Book Foundation was opening this catetory to authors who are not citizens of the United States “as long as they “maintain their primary, long-term home in the United States, US territories, or Tribal lands.”
David Steinberger
Steinberger, the foundation chair, said at the time, “The fundamental mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature published in the United States, and to ensure that books remain at the forefront of our vibrant culture.
“We believe in the value of all stories, and it’s our hope that by further opening our existing submissions process, the National Book Awards will be more reflective of the US literary landscape and better able to recognize the immense literary contributions of authors that consider the United States their home.”
Young People’s Literature
Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Kareem Between (Penguin Random House, GP Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
Shifa Saltagi Safadi. Image: NBF, Nathalie Schueller
Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s works include several picture books. She has a BA in English literature, reviews Muslim books on her “Muslim Mommy” blog site, and is originally from Syria, having migrated with her parents to the States when young.
Safadi is a teacher of English language arts at a middle school.
At the 75th anniversary National Book Awards from the National Book Foundation, Cipriani Wall Street, New York City. Image: NBF, Beowulf Sheehan
See also:
The 75th US National Book Awards, in a Time of Worry
US 2024 Distinguished Contribution Medalist: Barbara Kingsolver
Publisher W. Paul Coates Wins the US 2024 Literarian Award
Five Shortlists: The US National Book Awards’ 2024 Finalists
US National Book Award 2024 Longlists: Translated Literature
US National Book Award 2024 Longlists: Fiction
US National Book Award 2024 Longlists: Nonfiction
US National Book Award 2024 Longlists: Young People’s Literature
US National Book Award 2024 Longlists: Poetry
US National Book Awards: Opening to Non-US Citizens
More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Awards in the United States is here and more on the field of international book awards and prizes is here. More on international publishing rights is here, and more on the United States’ market is here.
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