Authors Robin D.G. Kelley, Percival Everett, Haki Madhubuti and Rita Dove were the winners at the 9th annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, held last night in Washington D.C. The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are presented annually to authors of African descent for the best works in fiction, nonfiction and poetry in the previous year.
The nonfiction award was presented to Robin D.G. Kelley for Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press) and the fiction prize was presented to Percival Everett for his novel I am Not Sidney Poitier (Graywolf Press). For the first time in the history of the awards, there were two winners for poetry: Haki Madhubuti for Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966—2009 (Third World Press) and Rita Dove for Sonata Mulattica (W.W. Norton). Winners receive a statue and a cash prize.
This year’s event also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, founded in 1990 by novelist Marita Golden and bibliophile Clyde McElvene as a resource center for writers, readers and supporters of African American literature.
