W Paul Coates and Percival Everett are among the US National Book Awards 20204 winners announced in New York, USA on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
The US National Book Awards are literary awards from the Northern American nation’s National Book Foundation established in 1936. They are conferred on fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. In 2020, Les Payne, Tamara Payne, and Kacen Callender won in their categories while Walter Mosley was given a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Tiya Miles and Jason Mott won in 2021.
The longlists for 2024, the seventy fifth edition, were revealed from September 10 – 13 before the finalists were made public on October 1. The winners were announced at a ceremony emceed by Saturday Night Live cast member Kate McKinnon with a performance by Jon Batiste. The writers of African descent who won in their categories were:
Fiction
Jury: Lauren Groff (chair), Jamie Ford, Zeyn Joukhadar, Chawa Magaña, and Reginald McKnight.
- James, Percival Everett (Doubleday) – In James, Percival Everett considers authorial intent and the possibilities of agency through a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that centers Jim, an enslaved runaway who was relegated to the role of a mild-mannered companion in Mark Twain’s original telling.
Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the Literary Community 2024
- Publisher W Paul Coates
“W. Paul Coates has recovered and discovered countless essential works of Black literature, and readers everywhere have reaped the benefits of his passion and care for the written word,” said David Steinberger, chair of the National Book Foundation’s board, in a press release earlier. Ruth Dickey, the foundation’s executive director, added, “As a librarian, publisher, and community activist, W. Paul Coates has been instrumental in preserving the legacy of remarkable writers and elevating works that have shaped our personal and collective understanding of the Black experience within the borders of the United States and around the globe.”
“It took me a while to figure out, because I am a late-coming follower, that I am also in that tradition. My mission is recovery, and making Black self-narrating voices known to the world. I am not an interpreter. I prefer to let those voices speak to the next generations for themselves,” said Coates after receiving the award from Walter Mosley.
He added: “The more obscure they are, the more important they are in my quest. Those voices are all Black classics to me. If those voices are not present, the result is a drab, washed-out monotone of history, and a narration where some awful person steps up and insists that slavery was a necessary experience that taught black people many valued skills. I can’t let that happen.”
Watch the full ceremony below;
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