The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human
culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
.
Established in 1935 by
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and
philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...
Edith Anisfield Wolf and originally administered by the ''
Saturday Review'', the awards have been administered by the
Cleveland Foundation since 1963.
The foundation confers awards in several categories, such as fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoir/autobiography, and lifetime achievement, each September in a ceremony free and open to the public and attended by the honorees. Winners previously include
Zora Neale Hurston (1943),
Langston Hughes (1954),
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
(1959),
Maxine Hong Kingston (1978),
Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...
(1983),
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...
(1988),
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...
(1988),
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel '' Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953.
Ellison wrote '' Shadow and Act'' (1964), a co ...
(1992),
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
(2000), and
Derek Walcott (2004).
The jury has been composed of prominent American writers and scholars since 1991, when long-time jury chairman
Ashley Montagu
Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (born Israel Ehrenberg; June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He was the ...
, a renowned anthropologist, asked poet
Rita Dove and scholar
Henry Louis Gates Jr. to help him judge the large number of books submitted annually by publishers across the disciplines. When Montagu retired in 1996, Gates assumed the chair position. In 1996, evolutionary biologist
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
, writer
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...
, and historian
Simon Schama
Sir Simon Michael Schama ( ; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a professor of history and art history at Columbia Uni ...
(all of whom retired before the 2024 awards) joined. After Gould died in 2002, psychologist
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
replaced him on the jury. At the 2024 awards, Pinker and Dove retired. The current jury is Natasha Trethewey (jury chair), Peter Ho Davies, Tiya Miles, Charles King, Deesha Philyaw, and Luis Alberto Urrea.
Winners
Fiction
Poetry
Memoir/Autobiography
Nonfiction
Lifetime achievement
Special Achievement Award
*1992 –
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel '' Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953.
Ellison wrote '' Shadow and Act'' (1964), a co ...
for ''
Invisible Man''
Notes
References
External links
Anisfield-Wolf.org– official website
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awardsat lovethebook.com
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77th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, September 13, 2012 C-SPAN
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78th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, September 12, 2013 C-SPAN
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83rd annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, October 27, 2018 C-SPAN
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, video4
84th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, September 26, 2019 C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...
Awards established in 1935
American fiction awards
American non-fiction literary awards
Literary awards honoring lifetime achievement
Culture of Cleveland
1935 establishments in the United States
Anti-racism