Award-Winning Literary and Scholarly Works by African Americans (to 2013)

The following is a list of major awards won by African Americans for literary, journalistic, and scholarly writing compiled by San Diego State University Librarian Robert Fikes, Jr.  The list includes all awards earned by these writers for fiction and non fiction.  Links to specific prizes appear immediately below.  The entire list follows at the end.  If you have any questions or suggestions concerning this list please contact Mr. Fikes.  

African Studies Association Melville Herskovits Awards
American Academy of Diplomacy Book Award
American Bar Association Silver Gavel Awards in Law
American Education Research Association Book Award
American Education Studies Association Book Award
American Historical Association and Affiliates Awards
American Institute of Physics Award
American Political Science Association Awards
American Sociological Association Book Awards
American Studies Association
ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism
Carl Sandburg Award
Child Magazine Best Parenting Book
Christian Booksellers Association Christy Award
Edgar Allan Poe Award
Gertrude Stein Award
Grand Prix Policier
Jack Kerouac Literary Prize
Jean Stein Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
Kingsley Tuffs Poetry Award
Law and Economics Center Prize
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
Locus Award for Science Fiction
London Sunday Times Book of the Year
Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion
Macavity Award for Mystery Writing

Medieval Academy of America Haskins Medal
Modern Language Association
National Book Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
National Religious Book Award
Nebula Awards for Science Fiction
Newbery Medal
New York Drama Critics Circle Award
Nobel Prize
Obie Award
O’Henry Prize
Paul Davidoff Award for Outstanding Book
PEN/Faulkner Award
Poetry Society of America Awards
Pulitzer Prize
Shamus Award
Society of Urban Anthropology Anthony Leeds Prize
Southern Historical Association H.L. Mitchell Award
Southern Political Science Award
Story Prize
Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize
Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award
Whitbread Award
Whiting Writer’s Award
World Fantasy Award


African Studies Association Melville Herskovits Award

For the best book published on Africa by an American scholar.

2008: Linda M. Heywood for Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660 (Cambridge University Press)

2006: J. Lorand Malory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble (Princeton University Press)

2003: Joseph Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development (Cambridge University Press)

1994: Keletso E. Atkins, The Moon is Dead! Give Us Our Money! The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843-1900 (Heinemann)

1993: Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (Oxford University Press)

1989: Valentin Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge (Indiana University Press)

1975: Lansine Kaba for The Wahhabiyya (Northwester University Press) 

1974: Elliot Skinner for African Urban Life: The Transformation of Ouagadougou (Princeton University Press)

 

American Academy of Diplomacy Book Award

1996: Condoleezza Rice for Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (Harvard University Press)

 

American Bar Association Silver Gavel Awards in Law

2005: Randall Kennedy as co-editor for “Brown at 50” in The Nation magazine

1978: A. Leon Higginbotham for In the Matter of Color (Oxford University Press)

 

American Education Research Association Book Award

1998: Linda Darling-Hammond for The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass)

 

American Education Studies Association Book Award

1998: Vanessa S. Walker for Their Highest Potential: An African-American School Community in the Segregated South (University of North Carolina Press)

1993: Cornel West for Race Matters (Beacon Press)

 

American Historical Association and Affiliates Awards

American Historical Association (AHA), Organization of American Historians (OAH), and Society of American Historians (SAH), History of Science Society (HSS)

2009: Leslie Brown, Frederick Jackson Turner Prize (OAH) for Upbuilding Black Durham: Gender, Class, and Black Community Development in the Jim Crow South (The University of North Carolina Press)

2008: Joseph Harris (Howard University) Award for Scholarly Distinction

2007: Rosanne Marion Adderley, Wesley-Logan Prize (AHA) for New Negroes from Africa: Slave Trade Abolition and Free African Settlement in the Nineteenth-Century Caribbean (Indiana University Press)

2007: Sylviane A. Diouf, Wesley- Logan Prize (AHA) for Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America (Oxford University Press)

2006: Frank M. Snowden, Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History (AHA) for The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900–1962 (Yale University Press)

2006: Christopher Leslie Brown, Morris D. Forkosch Prize (AHA) for Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Univ. of North Carolina Press)

2005: Kevin Dawson, Louis Pelzer Memorial Award (OAH) for “Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World”

2005:  Martin Summers, Pacific Coast Branch Book Award (AHA) for Manliness and Its Discontents: The Black Middle Class and the Transformation of Masculinity, 1900-1930 (University of North Carolina Press)

2004: Dylan C. Penningroth, Avery O. Craven Award (OAH) for The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South (University of North Carolina Press)

2004: Barbara Ransby, James A Rawley Prize (OAH) for Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (University of North Carolina Press)

2003: Leslie M. Harris, Wesley-Logan Prize for In the Shadows of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (University of Chicago Press)

2003: Joseph Inikori, Leo Gershoy Award for Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England (Cambridge University Press).

2003: Barbara Ransby, Joan Kelly Prize for Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (University of North Carolina Press)

2002: Daryle Williams, John E. Fagg Prize for Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930–1945 (Duke University Press) 

2001: Christopher L Brown, ABC-Clio Award (OAH) for best journal article 

2000: Dylan Penningroth for best dissertation on American history (SAH)

1998: Brenda Gayle Plummer, Myrna F. Bernath Book Award (SAH) for Rising Wind:Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960 (University of North Carolina Press)

1997: Brenda Gayle Plummer, Wesley-Logan Prize (AHA) for Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Aid (U. of North Carolina Press)

1997: John Edgar Wideman, James Fennimore Cooper Prize (SAH) for The Cattle Killing (Houghton Mifflin)

1995: Julie Saville, Avery O. Craven Award (OAH) for The Work of Reconstruction: From  Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina, 1860-1870 (Cambridge University Press) 

1995: Robin D. G. Kelly, ABC-Clio Award (OAH) for best journal article

1993: Evelyn Higginbotham for Righteous Discontent (Random House), (AHA)

1991: Merze Tate for distinguished scholarship (AHA)

1991: Robin Kelley for Hammer and Hoe (Cornell University Press), (OAH)

1988: Helen G. Edmonds for distinguished scholarship (AHA)

1987: Benjamin Quarles for distinguished scholarship (AHA)

1986: John Hope Franklin for distinguished writings (SAH)

1984: Kenneth R. Manning, Pfizer Award for Black Apollo of Science (Oxford University Press.)

1982: Clayborne Carson for In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Harvard University Press), (OAH)

1982: Walter Rodney (posthumously) for History of the Guyana Working People, 1881-1905 (Johns Hopkins University Press), (AHA)

 

American Institute of Physics Award

2001: Neil de Grasse Tyson for science writing for his book One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (Joseph Henry Press)

 

American Political Science Association Awards

For the best scholarly work in political science that explores and cultural pluralism.

2007: Fredrick C. Harris for Countervailing Forces in African-American Civic Activism, 1973-1994 (Cambridge University Press)

2007: Mark Q. Sawyer for Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba (Cambridge University Press)

2006: Khalilah L. Brown for best dissertation (done at Ohio State University)

2004: Linda Faye Williams for The Constraint of Race (Penn State U. Press) 

2005: Albert L. Samuels for Is Separate Unequal: Black Colleges and the Challenge to Desegregation (University of Kansas Press) 

2005: Esther N. Mwangi for Institutional Change and Politics: The Transformation of Property Rights in Kenya’s Maasailand (International Food Policy Research Institute) 

2002: Michael Dawson for Black Vision (University of Chicago Press) 

1997: Anthony Appiah for Color Conscious (Princeton University Press)

1989: Ronald Walters for Black Presidential Politics (SUNY Press)

1983: Orlando Patterson for Slavery and Social Death (Harvard University Pr.)

1981: Marguerite Ross Barnett for The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India

 

American Sociological Association Book Awards

2007: Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism (Routledge, 2005) 2005: Ann J. Morning (award-winning dissertation done at Princeton University)

1998: Oyerunke Oyewumi for The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Gender Discourses (University of Minnesota Press)

1997: Melvin Oliver for Black Wealth/White Wealth (Routledge)

1993: Patricia Hill Collins for Black Feminist Thought (Unwin Hyman)

1986: Aldon Morris for Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (Free Press)

1983: Orlando Patterson for Slavery and Social Death (Harvard University Press)

1977: William J. Wilson for The Declining Significance of Race (Univ. of Chicago Pr.)

1956: E. Franklin Frazier for Black Bourgeoisie (Free Press)

 

American Studies Association

2006: Tiya Miles, Romero Prize for Ties That Bind: An Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and in Freedom (University of California Press, 2005) 

2004: Brent Hayes Edwards, John Hope Franklin Prize for The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003) 

2002: Sharon Holland, Romero Prize for Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity (Duke University Press)

2000: John Hope Franklin (Bode-Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement) 

1997: Kevin K. Gaines, John Hope Franklin Prize for Uplifting the Race (University of North Carolina Press)

 

ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism

2005: Aliya S. King for article on Al Green in Vibe magazine

1992: Armond White writing for The City Sun

1989: Nelson George for The Death of Rhythm & Blues (Pantheon Books) 

1986: Nelson George for Where Did Our Love Go (St. Martin’s Press) 

1981: Kalamu ya Salaam for work in Black Collegian magazine

1980: James Haskins for Scott Joplin: The Man Who Made Ragtime (Doubleday)

1979: Mercer Ellington for Duke Ellington in Person (Houghton Mifflin) 

1976: Albert Murray for Stomping the Blues (McGraw)

 

Carl Sandburg Award

Annually given to the best American poet.

2007: Nikki Giovanni for poetry

2004: Henry Louis Gates for his body of work 

1993: Patricia Smith for poetry, “Big Town, Big Talk”

1988: Barbara Chase-Riboud for "Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra"

1982: Sterling Plumpp for "The Mojo Hands Call/I Must Go"

 

Child Magazine Best Parenting Book

1992: Marian Wright Edelman for The Measure of Our Success (Beacon Press)

 

Christian Booksellers Association Christy Award

2001: Sharon Ewell Foster for best new novel Passing by Samaria (Multnomah Publishers Inc.)

 

Edgar Allan Poe Award

Present annually by the Mystery Writers of America.

2006: Gary Earl Ross for A Matter of Intent

1978: Marc Olden for They’ve Killed Anna (Signet)

1970: Virginia Hamilton for The House of Dies Drear (Simon & Schuster)

 

Gertrude Stein Award

Bestowed annually for new and innovative poetry.

1994: Harryette Mullen

 

Grand Prix Policier

This is the French equivalent of the Shamus Award for best detective fiction

1958: Chester Himes

 

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

2009: Michael Thomas for Man Gone Down (Grove Press)

2005: Edward P. Jones for The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins)

 

Jack Kerouac Literary Prize

1995: Earl S. Braggs for “After Allyson”

 

Jean Stein Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters

1993: Andre Crouch

1983: Jamaica Kincaid for At the Bottom of the River (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

1984: Andrea Lee for Russian Journal (Random House)

 

Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

$100,000 award given annually to outstanding poets in their mid career.

2002: Carl Phillips for "The Tether" 

1994: Yusef Komunyakaa for "Neon Vernacular"

 

Law and Economics Center Prize

1980: Thomas Sowell for Knowledge and Decision (Basic Books)

 

Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

This prize, worth $10,000, is offered by the Academy of American Poets in conjunction with The Nation magazine and the New Hope Foundation.

1999: Wanda Coleman for Bathwater Wine (Sparrow Press)

1981: Sterling Brown for The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown (Harper & Row)

 

Locus Award for Science Fiction

1999: Nalo Hopkinson for Brown Girl in the Ring (Warner Aspect)

 

London Sunday Times Book of the Year

1969: Sam Greenlee for The Spook Who Sat By the Door (Bantam Books)

 

Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion

$150,000 prizes in education, religion, world affairs, music, and psychology

2007: James Comer for Leave No Child Behind (Yale University Press) 

1994: Stephen Carter for The Culture of Disbelief (Basic Books), $150,000 prize

 

Macavity Award for Mystery Writing

Administered by the Mystery Readers International.

2000: Paula L. Woods for Inner City Blues (Norton)

1993: Barbara Neely for Blanch on the Lam (St. Martin’s)

 

Medieval Academy of America Haskins Medal

For the best book dealing with the medieval history and culture.

1996: William C. Jordan for The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century (Princeton University Press)

 

Modern Language Association

2007: Jacqueline Goldsby, William S. Scarborough Prize for A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature (Univ. of Chicago Press)

2002: Maurice O. Wallace, William S. Scarborough Prize for Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men’s Literature and Culture, 1775-1995 (Duke University Press)

2001: Eddie S. Glaude Jr., William S. Scarborough Prize for Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America (University of Chicago Press)

2000: Jacqueline Jones Royster, Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for outstanding publication in teaching English and literature, Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women (University of Pittsburgh Press) 

 

National Book Award

Awarded by the Association of American Publishers for Distinguished contribution to American letters by a United States citizen.

2010: Terrance Hayes for Lighthead (Penguin Books), poetry

2008: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, non-fiction 

2006: Nathaniel Mackey for Splay Anthem, poetry 

2000: Lucille Clifton for Blessing the Boats (Boa Editions Ltd.), poetry

1993: Edward P. Jones for Lost in the City (Morrow), fiction

1991: Orlando Patterson for Freedom (Basic Books), for nonfiction

1990: Charles R. Johnson for Middle Passage (Atheneum), fiction

1983: Alice Walker for The Color Purple (Pocket Books), fiction

1983: Joyce Carol Thomas for Marked by Fire (Avon Books), children’s literature

1983: Gloria Naylor for The Women of Brewster Place (Viking Press), first novel

1957: Ralph Ellison for Invisible Man (Heritage Press), fiction

 

National Book Critics Circle Award

Conferred by book critics in four categories. The NBCC is comprised of more than 700 book reviewers across the nation.

2007: Harriet Washington for Medical Apartheid (Doubleday), non-fiction

2007: Edwidge Danticat for Brother, I’m Dying (Knopf), autobiography

2003: Edward P. Jones for The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins), fiction

1994: Gerald Early for The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture (Ecco Press), for criticism

1993: Ernest Gaines for A Lesson Before Dying (Knopf), fiction

1990: Shelby Steele for The Content of Our Character (St. Martin’s Press), nonfiction

1977: Toni Morrison for Song of Solomon (New American Library)

 

National Religious Book Award

1978: Albert J. Raboteau for Slave Religion (Oxford University Press)

 

Nebula Awards for Science Fiction

Conferred by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc. for the best books in science fiction and fantasy.

1999: Octavia Butler for Parable of the Talents (Warner Books)

1984: Octavia Butler for Bloodchild (Seven Stories Press)

1967: Samuel Delany for The Einstein Intersection by Samuel Delaney (Ace Books)

 

Newbery Medal

Given by the American Library Association for the most distinguished contribution to children’s and young adult literature.

2000: Christopher Paul Curtis for Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte Press)

1977: Mildred D. Taylor for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Dial Press)

1975: Virginia Hamilton for M.C. Higgins, The Great (Macmillan)

 

New York Drama Critics Circle Award

2009: Lynn Nottage best play award for Ruined

2007: August Wilson best American play for Radio Golf

2004: Lynn Nottage best play for Intimate Apparel

2000: August Wilson for Jitney

1994: Anna Deavere Smith for Twilight: Los Angeles

1992: August Wilson for Two Trains Running

1990: August Wilson for The Piano Lesson

1988: August Wilson for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

1985: August Wilson for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

1982: Charles Fuller for A Soldier’s Play

1974: Ed Bullins for the Taking of Miss Janie

1959: Lorraine Hansberry for A Raisin in the Sun

 

Nobel Prize

Awarded annually for an author’s total body work by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. This prize carries a substantial monetary award.

1993: Tony Morrison, literature/fiction (author of Beloved, Song of Solomon, et al.)

1992: Derek Walcott, literature/poetry (a native of the Caribbean, taught in U.S.)

1979: Sir Arthur Lewis, economics (born in Caribbean and taught at Princeton University)

 

Obie Award

For writing the best original off-Broadway play.

2009: Lynn Nottage for best new play Ruined

2004: Lynn Nottage for Fabulation

1995: Suzan-Lori Parks playwriting for Venus

1993: Anna Deavere Smith for best play, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992

1992: Anna Deveare Smith special citation for Fires in the Mirror

1989: Suzan-Lori Parks for best new American play, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom 

1979: Ntozake Shange for adaptation of Mother Courage 

1976: Ntozake Shange for Colored Girls Who Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf

1974: Ed Bullins for The Taking of Miss Janie 

1964: LeRoi Jones for The Dutchman

1956: Alice Childress for Trouble in Mind

 


O’Henry Prize

This annual award, sponsored by the Society of Arts and Sciences, goes
to the best short stories written in the U.S. and Canada.

2009: Junot Diaz for “Wildwood” 

2006: Edward P . Jones for “Old Boys, Old Girls”

2005: Edward P. Jones for “A Rich Man”

2002: Andrea Lee for “Anthropology”

2002: Edwidge Dandicat for “Seven”

2001: Murad Kalam for “Bow Down”

2000: John Edgar Wideman for “Weight” (First Place)

1997: Thomas Glave for “The Final Inning”

1997: Reginald McKnight for “The Boot”

1996: Walter Mosley for “Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned: The Socrates Fortlow Stories”

1995: Walter Mosley for “The Thief”

1993: Andrea Lee for “Anthropology”

1993: Andrea Lee for “Winter Barley”

1991: Charles Johnson for “Kwoon”

1989: Reginald McKnight for “The Kind of Light that Shines in Texas”

1986: Alice Walker for “Kindred Spirits”

1981: Alice Walker for “The Abortion”

1973: James Alan McPherson for “The Faithful”

1972: James Alan McPherson for “The Silver Bullet”

1971: Eldridge Cleaver for “The Flashlight”

1969: James Alan McPherson for “Of Cabbage and Kings”

1959: James Baldwin for “Come Out of the Wilderness” 

1944: Frank Yerby for “Health Card” (best first published story)

1940: Richard Wright for “Almos’ a Man”

1938: Richard Wright for “Fire and Cloud”

 

PEN/Faulkner Award

Presented annually to the best writer of fiction.

1991: John Edgar Wideman for Philadelphia Fire (Holt)

1984: John Edgar Wideman for Sent For You Yesterday (Avon) 

1982: David Bradley for The Chaneysville Incident (Harper)

1973: Hal Bennett for the short story “Dotson Gerber Resurrected” 

 

Poetry Society of America Awards

Awarded for distinguished contributions to American poetry.

2008: Michael S. Harper (Frost Medal) 

2004: Yusef Komunyakaa (Shelley Memorial Award)

2004: Anthony Butts (William Carlos Williams Award)

2001: Sonia Sanchez (Frost Medal)

2001: Yusef Komunyakaa  (Ruth Lilly Prize)

1997: Toi Derricotte (Lucille Medwick Memorial Award)

1994: Cyrus Cassells (William Carlos Williams Award)

1992: Lucille Clifton (Shelley Memorial Award)

1989: Gwendolyn Brooks (Frost Medal)

1987: Sterling Brown (Frost Medal)

1984: Etheridge Knight

1978: Michael Harper (Melville Cane Award)

1925: Countee Cullen (Witter Bynner Contest)

 

Pulitzer Prize

Administered by the Columbia University School of Journalism, the prestigious Pulitzer Prize is awarded in journalism, arts, and letters.

2010: Junot Diaz
for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2009: Annette Gordon-Reed for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, history

2009: Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post for commentary

2009: Lynn Nottage for Ruin, drama

2007: Cynthia Tucker of Atlanta Journal-Constitution for commentary

2006: Robin Givhan, fashion editor for the Washington Post, for criticism 

2005: Dele Olojede for international reporting in Newsday 

2004: Edward P. Jones for the fiction, The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins)

2004: Leonard Pitts Jr. for commentary in the Miami Herald

2003: Colbert I. King for commentary in the Washington Post

2002: Suzan-Lori Parks for Topdog/Underdog, drama

2001: David L. Lewis for W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century (Holt)

1999: Angelo Henderson, feature writing in the Wall Street Journal

1996: E. R. Shipp for commentary in the New York Daily News

1995: Leon Dash for explanatory  journalism

1994: David Levering Lewis for W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1865-1919 (Holt)

1994: William Raspberry for commentary in the Washington Post

1994: Yusef Komunyakaa for Neon Vernacular (Wesleyan University Pr.), poetry

1994: Isabel Wilkerson for feature writing 

1992: Andrea Ford, feature writing on the Los Angeles riot in the Los Angeles Times

1992: Karen Hunter, editorial writing on the Apollo Theater in the New York Daily News

1990: August Wilson for The Piano Lesson (Dutton), drama

1989: Clarence Page for commentary in the Chicago Tribune

1988: Dean Baquet, investigative reporting in the Chicago Tribune

1987: August Wilson for Fences (New American Library), drama

1987: Rita Dove for Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie-Mellon Press), poetry

1983: Alice Walker for The Color Purple (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), fiction

1982: Charles Fuller for A Soldier’s Play (Wang and Hill), drama

1978: James A. McPherson for Elbow Room (Little, Brown), fiction

1977: Acel Moore for local investigative reporting in the Philadelphia Inquirer

1977: Alex Haley for Roots (Doubleday), special citation

1973: Roger Wilkins, for journalism in writing on Watergate in the Washington Post

1970: Charles Gordone for No Place to Be Somebody (Bobbs-Merrill), drama

1950: Gwendolyn Brooks for Annie Allen (Harper), poetry

 

Shamus Award

Presented by the Private Eye Writers of America for best detective fiction.

1996: Gar Anthony Haywood for “And Pray Nobody Sees You,” short story fiction

1995: Valerie Wilson Wesley for When Death Comes Stealing (Putnam)

1994: Walter Mosley for “The Watt’s Lion,” short story fiction

1991: Walter Mosley for Devil in a Blue Dress (Norton)

1989: Gar Anthony Haywood for Fear of the Dark (St. Martin’s Press)

 

Society of Urban Anthropology Anthony Leeds Prize

For the best book in urban anthropology.

1998: Steven Gregory for Black Corona (Princeton University Press)             

 

Southern Historical Association H. L. Mitchell Award

2005: William Jones for The Tribe of Black Ulysses (University of Illinois Press)

1998: Tera Hunter for To ‘Joy My Freedom (Harvard University Press)

 

Southern Political Science Award

1994: Katherine Tate, V.O. Key, Jr. Book Award for The New Black Voter in America (Harvard University Press)

 

Story Prize

$20,000 prize for best short story collection.

2004: Edwidge Danticat for The Dew Breaker (Knopf) 

 

Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize

2005: Carl Phillips for The Rest of Love

 

Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award

For best book on American agricultural history.

1967: Harold Pinkett for Gifford Pinchot, Private and Public Forester (University of Illinois Press)

 

Whitbread Award

One of the two most prominent British book awards.

2004: Andrea Levy for Small Island (Picador) 

 

Whiting Writers’ Award

Awarded annually to ten writers of new fiction, drama, and poetry. Worth $35,000.

2009:  Jericho Brown for poetry

2008:  Douglas Kearney for poetry

2007: Tarell Alvin McCraney for The Brothers Size, playwriting

2006: Tyehimba Jess for lLadbelly, poetry (Verse Press) 

2005: John Keene for fiction/poetry

2005: Tracy K. Smith for poetry

2005: Thomas Sayers Ellis for poetry

2004: A. Van Jordan for poetry

2004: Tracey Scott Wilson for playwriting

2004: Victor LaValle for fiction

2003: Agymah Kamou for fiction

2003: Major Jackson for poetry

2002: Jeffrey Renard Allen for fiction and poetry 

2002: Danzy Senna for fiction 

2000: Colson Whitehead for fiction

2000: Claude Wilkinson for poetry 

1999: Terrance Hayes for poetry

1998: Anthony Walton for fiction 

1997: A. J. Verdelle for fiction 

1995: Reginald McKnight for fiction

1994: Randall Kenan for fiction/nonfiction 

1994: Louis Edwards for fiction

1993: Nathaniel Mackey for poetry/fiction 

1992: Suzan-Lori Parks for playwriting 

1991: Stanley Crouch for nonfiction

1991: Thylias Moss for poetry 

 

World Fantasy Award

For best new fantasy fiction by an American author.

2002: Nalo Hopkinson for Skin Folk (Warner Aspect)  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2005: Chris Albani for GraceLand (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

1992: Edward P. Jones for Lost in the City (Morrow)