Joy Reid speaks during the during the TIME 100 Summit, April 23, 2019, in New York, left, and Percival Everett appears at the Booker Prize award dinner in London, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo)
Joy Reid and Percival Everett are among winners of the 46th annual American Book Awards
NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Former MSNBC host Joy Reid and authors Percival Everett and John Edgar Wideman are among this years’ recipients of the 46th annual American Book Awards, which celebrate diversity in American art and culture. The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation, the nonprofit that author-playwright Ishmael Reed helped found in 1976.
Joy Reid speaks during the during the TIME 100 Summit, April 23, 2019, in New York, left, and Percival Everett appears at the Booker Prize award dinner in London, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo)
NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Former MSNBC host Joy Reid and authors Percival Everett and John Edgar Wideman are among this years’ recipients of the 46th annual American Book Awards, which celebrate diversity in American art and culture. The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation, the nonprofit that author-playwright Ishmael Reed helped found in 1976.
Reid, who left MSNBC in February soon after the network canceled her prime time show 鈥淭he ReidOut, was awarded the foundation’s anti-censorship prize. Wideman, an acclaimed fiction and nonfiction writer since the 1960s, has won a lifetime achievement award. Honorees for current works include Everett for 鈥淛ames,鈥 his Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of 鈥淭he Adventures of Huckleberry Finn鈥; Kaveh Akbar for 鈥淢artyr!鈥; Danzy Senna for 鈥淐olored Television鈥 and Claire Messud for 鈥淭his Strange Eventful History.鈥
Other recipients announced Monday ranged from Amy M. Alvarez for her poetry collection 鈥淢akeshift Altar鈥 to Sarah Lewis’ nonfiction 鈥淭he Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America.鈥 Penguin Random House editor Erroll McDonald, whose authors have include Wideman and Nobel laureates and , won the editor/publisher award.
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鈥淭he purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions,鈥 the foundation’s announcement reads in part. 鈥淭he award winners range from well-known and established writers to under-recognized authors and first works. There are no quotas for diversity; the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process.鈥
Previous winners include and the new poet laureate,
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