World Literary Awards

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American Book Awards あめりかんぶっくあわーど

Edition 30 (2009)

Literary awardMulticultural literatureNo genre restrictions (novels, poetry, non-fiction, etc.)

Winners

13 people

An essayistic critique of black intellectuals who drifted away from civil-rights ideals, rethinking public life and racial politics.

A sharp argument about responsibility, ambition, and the retreat of civil-rights ideals.

242 pages
criticismracial politicsintellectual history
Danit Brown Winner

A linked short-story collection that follows Osnat as she moves between Tel Aviv and Michigan and struggles with belonging.

A story about searching for a place to belong across countries and generations.

321 pages
linked storiesimmigrationidentity
Jericho Brown Winner

A poetry collection that compresses love, violence, race, nation, and sexuality into intense, rhythmic language.

Sharp, musical language braids together desire and pain.

69 pages
poetryidentityembodiment

An anthology of José Antonio Burciaga’s work that preserves the humor, art, and cultural force of his Chicano writing.

A selected works volume that also serves as a cultural archive.

232 pages
selected worksChicano literaturecultural history

A nonfiction work that examines how genetic engineering affects the future of seeds and reconsiders agriculture and food sovereignty.

It looks closely at the boundary between technology and ethics in the world of seeds.

genetic engineeringseedsagriculturefood sovereignty

If I Die in Juarez is a nonfiction that explores history and background and offers substantial reading.

It leaves a quiet afterglow through history and background.

nonfictionhistorybackgroundresearch
Linda Gregg Winner

All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems is a poetry collection that explores the rhythm of language and emotional shifts and offers substantial reading.

It leaves a quiet afterglow through the rhythm of language and emotional shifts.

poetrylanguageemotionrhythm
Suheir Hammad Winner

Breaking Poems is a poetry collection that explores the rhythm of language and emotional shifts and offers substantial reading.

It leaves a quiet afterglow through the rhythm of language and emotional shifts.

poetrylanguageemotionrhythm

The Age of Wonder is a nonfiction that explores science and imagination in the Romantic era and offers substantial reading.

It leaves a quiet afterglow through science and imagination in the Romantic era.

science historyRomanticismdiscoveryimagination

A Power Stronger than Itself: The A.A.C.M. and American Experimental Music is a music history that explores the AACM and American experimental music and offers substantial reading.

It leaves a quiet afterglow through the AACM and American experimental music.

music historycommunityexperimental musicAfrican American culture

A novel in which a young woman returning to her family’s Mexican hometown confronts memory, family rupture, and identity.

A search for the shape of family memory amid loss and change.

296 pages
novelfamilyimmigrant experience
Jack Spicer Winner

A collected edition of Jack Spicer’s poetry that gathers published poems, fragments, and notebooks into a single volume.

A gathered body of work that lets Spicer’s voice be read anew.

465 pages
poetry collectionmodernismedited volume
Miguel Algarín Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award