The Cleveland Foundation revealed the shortlist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, given annually to “books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity.”
This is the first year that the foundation is announcing a shortlist for the prizes, which are given to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books.
Danzy Senna made the shortlist for Colored Television, alongside Susan Muaddi Darraj for Behind You Is the Sea; both novels are also finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award. The other fiction title to be shortlisted is Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It.
The nonfiction books to be named finalists include Feeding Ghosts, written and illustrated by Tessa Hulls; the graphic memoir was a Kirkus Prize finalist last year. Also on the shortlist: The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America by Sarah Lewis, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “the Apocalypse” by Emily Raboteau, The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz, and The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, written by John Swanson Jacobs and edited by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder.
Two poetry collections made the shortlist as well: Janice N. Harrington’s Yard Show and Danez Smith’s Bluff.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were established in 1935 by Edith Anisfield Wolf, a Cleveland poet and philanthropist. Past winners include Alan Paton for Cry, the Beloved Country; Martin Luther King Jr. for Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, James McBride for Deacon King Kong; and Natasha Trethewey for Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir.
The winners of this year’s awards will be announced on April 10 at an event in Cleveland featuring authors (and best friends) Tommy Orange and Kaveh Akbar.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
