The winners of the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Awards 2022 have been announced on Thursday, October 27, 2022.
The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, named for US African American writers Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, honour the best in Black literature in the United States and around the globe. The Legacy Award for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry was the first national award in the United States presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers that was introduced in 2001. Some of the previous winners have been Alain Mabanckou, Colson Whitehead, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, Aminatta Forna, and Kwame Dawes. The winners in 2021 were Rita Woods, Percival Everett, Marcia Chatelain, and Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
The 2022 awards are upon us as the nominees in the different categories were announced on August 21. The winners are;
Fiction
Judges: Preston Allen, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Amina Gautier
- The Trees, Percival Everett
Debut Fiction
Judges: Ron A. Austin, Breena Clarke, and Zinzi Clemmons
- This Life, Quntos KunQuest (Agate Bolden)
Poetry
Judges: Remica Bingham-Risher, Brian Gilmore, and Yona Harvey
- No Ruined Stone, Shara McCallum
Nonfiction
Judges: Gerald Home, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Noliwe Rooks
(Historical/Social/Political)
- Born in Blackness, Howard French
(Memoir/Biography)
- Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay, Shanna Greene Benjamin
Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers 2022
- Lauren Arnold and Sabrina Ticer-Wurr
Crossover Award 2022
- Valerie Twyman White
Watch the ceremony in full here;
