The Cleveland Foundation announced the finalists for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, given annually in four categories to books that contribute “to our understanding of race and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures.”
Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me was named a finalist in the memoir category; the memoir was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and is on the shortlist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. The other memoir finalist is The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza.
Three books made the nonfiction shortlist: Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield; Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance by A’Lelia Bundles; and The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide by Howard W. French.
Susan Choi’s Flashlight, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for a National Book Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal, made the Anisfield-Wolf fiction shortlist, along with two other books: Jared Lemus’ Guatemalan Rhapsody and Carrie R. Moore’s Make Your Way Home.
Three collections made the poetry shortlist: Gbenga Adesina’s Death Does Not End at the Sea, Martín Espada’s Jailbreak of Sparrows, and Cathy Linh Che’s Becoming Ghost.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were founded in 1935. Previous winners include Tommy Orange for There There, Tessa Hulls for Feeding Ghosts, and James McBride for The Color of Water.
Each of this year’s winners will receive a cash prize of $30,000. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York on April 15.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
