The Zora Legacy Awards 2025 finalists announced

The finalists of the Zora Legacy Awards 2025, formerly the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Awards, were announced on Friday, August 29, 2025.

Zora Legacy Awards are a rebrand of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards ,organised by the Hurston/Wright Foundation, named for US African American literary icons Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. They honour the best in Black literature in the United States and around the globe. The Legacy Award was the first national award in the USA presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers since 2001. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry honourees are selected in a juried competition. Some of the previous winners include Alain Mabanckou, Colson Whitehead, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, Aminatta Forna, Kwame Dawes, Meron Hadero, T.L. Huchu, James Hannaham, Margaret Burnham, and Courtney Faye Taylor.

The finalists for 2025 are;

Debut Fiction  

Judges: Sifiso Mzobe, Alaya Johnson

• Grown Women, Sarai Johnson, HarperCollins
• Swift River, Essie Chambers, Simon & Schuster
• Before The Mango Ripens, Afabwaje Kurian, Dzanc Books

General Fiction

Judges: Natashia Deon, Amina Gautier

• Village Weavers, Myriam J.A. Chancy, Village Weavers
• Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton, Henry Holt & Co
• James, Percival Everett, Doubleday

Nonfiction

Judge: Morgan Christie

• This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood, Catherine Joy White, Penguin Random House – Dutton
• When Detroit Played the Numbers, Felicia B. George, Wayne State University Press
• The Black Utopians, Aaron Robertson, The Black Utopians
• Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Salvage, Dionne Brand, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Another Word for Love, Carvell Wallace, MCD

Poetry 

Judges: Hoke Glover, Courtney Faye Taylor, Chanda Felman

• Scattered Snows, to the North, Carl Phillips, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Black Bell, Alison C. Rollins, Copper Canyon Press
• Terminal Maladies, Okwudili Nebeolisa, Autumn House Press

College Award

Judges: Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Tendai Huchu

• Glasswig Butterfly, Ariana Matondo
• Twigs, Oak Morse
• Fly’n Home, Rebecca Haynesworth
• Tapped, Skyla Carmon
• The Joy, Mary Beth
• The Knife Thrower, Brandon Lee
• On Self Portraiture, Arielle Gray

The winners will be made public at the annual Legacy Awards Gala in Washington, DC, USA, on October 17, 2025.