The winners for the NAACP Image Awards 2022, including literary categories, were announced at a ceremony televised on BET TV on Saturday, February 26, 2022.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States aimed at advancing justice for African Americans founded by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, and Ida B. Wells in 1909. One of its most recognisable activities are its image awards where the highest achieving Black people are awarded in a variety of fields since 1967. Some of the winners in the literary categories in 2021 were Walter Mosley, Elijah Cummings, Les Payne, Tamara Payne, Honorée Jeffers, and Jacqueline Woodson.
The finalists for the different from a raft of categories including fiction, nonfiction, poetry as well as work for children and youth/teens were revealed on January 18. The winners for 2022 with the focus on the literary are;
Fiction
- Long Division, Kiese Laymon, Simon & Schuster
Nonfiction
- The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Penguin Random House
Debut Author
- Just As I Am, Cicely Tyson, Amistad
Biography/Autobiography
- Will, Will Smith, Penguin Random House
Poetry
- Perfect Black, Crystal Wilkinson, University Press of Kentucky
Youth/ Teens
- Ace Of Spades, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Feiwel & Friends / Macmillan
Children
- Stacey’s Extraordinary Words, Stacey Abrams, Kitt Thomas, HarperCollins
