Announcing the 2022 Hurston/Wright Foundation legacy awards nominees
On October 27, 2022, the Hurston/Wright Foundation will announce, during their annual Legacy Awards celebration, the winners of the juried awards for books by black authors published in 2021 in the categories of debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards continue the foundation’s tradition of recognizing literary excellence by black writers from the United States and around the world.
More than 200 books were submitted by publishers and self-published authors. The judges – all Legacy Award honourees in previous years – worked independently of the foundation to evaluate the books for artistic excellence and contribution to the literary canon.
The foundation invites you to join the event virtually for a festive evening celebrating Black literary excellence, culture, and community.
And The Nominees for the 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are:
Debut Fiction:
- This life, Quntos KunQuest (Agate Bolden)
- The house of rust, Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (GrayWolf Press)
- Young blood, Sifiso Mzobe (Catalyst Press)
- The final revival of Opal and Nev, Dawnie Walton (37 Ink)
Fiction:
- The trees, Percival Everett (Graywolf Press)
- Nazaré, J.J. Amaworo Wilson (PM Press)
- Yellow wife, Sadeqa Johnson (Simon & Schuster)
- The perishing, Natashia Deon (Counterpoint)
- Rib King, Ladee Hubbard (Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins)
- Reconstruction: Stories, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Small Beer Press)
Nonfiction: Memoir/Biography
- Half in shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay, Shanna Greene Benjamin (The University of North Carolina Press)
- Bird uncaged, Marlo Peterson (Bold Type Books)
- Read until you understand, Farah Jasmine Griffin (W. W. Norton & Company)
Nonfiction: Historical/Social/Political
- Born in blackness, Howard French (Liveright)
- We do this till we free us, Mariame Kaba (Haymarket Books)
- Liner notes for the revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, Daphne A. Brooks (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)
Poetry:
- No ruined stone, Shara McCallum (Alice James Books)
- Tragic city, Clemonce Heard (Anhinga Press)
- More perfect union, Teri Ellen Cross Davis (Mad Creek Books)
- Sho, Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)
- I remember death by its proximity to what I love, Mahogany L. Browne (Haymarket Books)
- Everyday Mojo songs of earth, Yusef Komunyakaa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Judges for each category are:
- Debut Fiction: Ron A. Austin, Breena Clarke, and Zinzi Clemmons
- Fiction: Preston Allen, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Amina Gautier
- Nonfiction: Gerald Home, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Noliwe Rooks
- Poetry: Remica Bingham-Risher, Brian Gilmore, and Yona Harvey
About the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation’s Annual Legacy Awards Ceremony honors the best in Black literature in the United States and around the globe. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. Since then, we have recognized nearly 400 works by Black writers in the categories of debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and honoured 97 students with College Writing Awards.
Lauren Arnold and Sabrina Ticer-Wurr, the 2022 Winners of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, and Valerie Twyman White, the winner of the 2022 Crossover Award, will be honoured during the event. The Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers is presented under the sponsorship of Harper Collins Publishers and the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award is presented in partnership with ESPN's Andscape. This year's virtual awards will feature musical performances, an ancestral libation segment honouring the members of our community we have lost this past year and an array of literary luminaries.
About the Hurston/Wright Foundation
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation was founded in 1990 in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to discovering, mentoring and honouring Black writers. Through workshops, master classes and readings, the organization preserves the voices of Black writers in the world literary canon, serves as a community for writers, and continues a tradition of literary excellence in storytelling established by its namesakes. The Hurston/Wright Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Learn more at www.hurstonwright.org.
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About Sifiso Mzobe
Sifiso Mzobe is a writer, content editor and translator. He was born and bred in Umlazi Township, south of Durban, South Africa, where he obtained his primary schooling and where he currently resides. After attending St. Francis College, he studied Journalism at the Damelin Business Campus in Durban.
His debut novel, Young Blood, charts the life of a teenager who drops out of school and joins a car hijacking syndicate. So raw was Mzobe’s rendition of the story that Young Blood went on to win the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for Best English Fiction, the SALA First Time Published Author Award and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Mzobe also made it into the “Africa 39 List,” a UNESCO initiative which names 39 of the most promising authors under the age of 40 from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora.
His second book, a collection of short stories titled, Searching for Simphiwe was published by Kwela Books in April 2020. His is currently working on his second novel titled, Durban December.
About Young blood
Title: Young blood
Author: Sifiso Mzobe
ISBN: 9781946395481
Publication date: April 2021
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Cars, money, girls: this is what you need to get ahead in Umlazi
Sipho, a seventeen-year-old from Umlazi, a township on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa. drops out of high school and joins a carjacking syndicate to make a name for himself and escape his family’s low-income life. Along with hijacking partners Musa and Vusi, Sipho learns the tricks of the dangerous trade and pushes deeper into the underbelly of Umlazi under the guidance of gang leader Sibani, while partying heavily and chasing women nightly despite loving his longtime girl-friend Nana.
Candid and unapologetic, Young Blood is the story of the intricate balance of circumstance and choice, swift gain and incredible loss, as Sipho finds out how far he can push his luck before the damage is irrevocable—and the consequences deadly. Both a red-hot crime novel of car heists, sex, and rival gangs and a coming-of-age story of a teenager navigating the costs of the fast life, Young Blood reveals the devastating violence and raw beauty of life in South Africa’s townships.