The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "there are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers."
The Award is administered by the Before Columbus Foundation, which established it in 1978 and inaugurated it in 1980, recognizing a list of eight 1979 publications. The Award honors excellence in American literature without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre. Previous winners include novelists, social scientists, poets, and historians such as Toni Morrison, Edward Said, Isabel Allende, bell hooks, Don DeLillo, Robin D.G. Kelley, Joy Harjo.
The 36th annual American Book Awards presented October 25, 2015 at the San Francisco Jazz Center. The winners are as follows:
Hisham Aidi, Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture (Vintage)Arlene Biala, her beckoning hands (Word Poetry)Arthur Dong, Forbidden City, USA: Chinese American Nightclubs, 1936-1970 (DeepFocus Productions)Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press)Peter J. Harris, The Black Man of Happiness (Black Man of Happiness Project)Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead Books)Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (Simon & Schuster)Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account (Pantheon)Manuel Luis Martinez, Los Duros (Floricanto Press)Craig Santos Perez, from unincorporated territory [guma’] (Omnidawn)Carlos Santana with Ashley Kahn and Hal Miller, The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (Little, Brown and Company)Ira Sukrungruang, Southside Buddhist (University of Tampa Press)Astra Taylor, The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Henry Holt)Anne Waldman, Lifetime AchievementFor seven years 1980 to 1986, there were two distinct sets of American Book Awards. The other is now officially one stage of the National Book Awards (NBA) history.
The National Book Foundation is responsible for the National Book Awards (U.S.) from 1989 and officially recognizes a continuous NBA history from 1949/1950. Part of that history is those so-called American Book Awards that formally replaced the National Book Awards after their 1979/1980 cycle, were revamped for 1984, and were renamed "National" in 1987.
The American Book Award is also unrelated to the American Booksellers Association (ABA), although that organization maintains a complete list of award winners that is readily available. Since the 1970s that trade group is also unrelated to the National Book Awards, which it established in 1936 and jointly re-established them as book industry awards in 1950.
1980Douglas Woolf for Future preconditional: A collectionEdward Dorn for Hello, La JollaJayne Cortez for Mouth on PaperLeslie Marmon Silko for CeremonyMei-mei Berssenbrugge for Random PossessionMilton Murayama for All I Asking for Is My BodyQuincy Troupe for Snake Back SolosRudolfo Anaya for Tortuga, a novel1981Alta for Shameless HussyAlan Chong Lau for Songs for JadinaBienvenido N. Santos for Scent of Apples: A Collection of StoriesHelen Adam for Turn Again to Me & Other PoemsLionel Mitchell for Traveling LightMiguel Algarín for On CallNicholasa Mohr for FelitaPeter Blue Cloud for Back Then TomorrowRobert Kelly for The Time of Voice: Poems 1994–1996Rose Drachler for The ChoiceSusan Howe for The LibertiesToni Cade Bambara for The Salt Eaters1982Al Young for Bodies and SoulDuane Niatum for Songs for the Harvester of Dreams: PoemsE. L. Mayo for Collected Poems E L MayoFrank Chin for The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the DragonHilton Obenzinger for This Passover or the next, I will never be in JerusalemHim Mark Lai, Genny Lim, Judy Yung for Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910–1940Jerome Rothenberg for Pre-Faces and Other WritingsJoyce Carol Thomas for Marked by FireLeroy Quintana for Paper Dance: 55 Latino PoetsLorna Dee Cervantes for EmplumadaRonald Phillip Tanaka for The Shino Suite: Japanese-American PoetryRussell Banks for Book of JamaicaTato Laviera for Enclave1983Barbara Christian for Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976Cecilia Liang for Chinese Folk PoetryEvangelina Vigil-Piñón for Thirty: An' Seen a LotHarriet Rohmer for Legend of Food Mountain: LA Montana Del AlimentoJames D. Houston for Californians: Searching for the Golden StateJessica Tarahata Hagedorn for Pet food & tropical apparitionsJohn A. Williams for Click Song, a novelJoy Kogawa for ObasanJudy Grahn for The Queen of Wands: PoetryNash Candelaria for Not by the SwordPeter Guralnick for Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American MusiciansSeán Ó Tuama for An Duanaire Sixteen Hundred to Nineteen Hundred: Poems of the Dispossessed1984Cecil Brown for Days Without WeatherGary Snyder for Axe Handles: PoemsHoward Schwartz, Mark Podwal for The Captive Soul of the Messiah: New Tales About Reb NachmanImamu Amiri Baraka for Anthology of African American Women: Confirmation MenJesús Colón for A Puerto Rican in New York, and Other SketchesJoseph Bruchac for Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian-American PoetsMaurice Kenny for The Mama PoemsMei-mei Berssenbrugge for The heat birdMiné Okubo for Citizen 13660Paule Marshall for Praisesong for the WidowRuthanne Lum McCunn, You-shan Tang, Ellen Lai-shan Yeung for Pie-BiterThomas McGrath for Echoes inside the labyrinthVenkatesh Kulkarni for Naked in DeccanWilliam J. Kennedy for O Albany!1985Angela Jackson for Solo in the Box Car Third Floor EArnold Genthe, John Kuo Wei Tchen for Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old ChinatownColleen J. McElroy for Queen of the Ebony IslesGary Soto for Living Up The StreetPeter Irons for Justice at WarKeiho Soga, Taisanboku Mori, Sojin Takei, Muin Ozaki for Poets Behind Barbed WireLouise Erdrich for Love Medicine, a novelMaureen Owen for Amelia EarhartMay Sarton for At Seventy: A JournalRobert Edward Duncan for Ground Work: Before the WarRon Jones for Say RaySandra Cisneros for The House on Mango StreetSonia Sanchez for Homegirls and HandgrenadesJulia Vinograd for "The Book of Jerusalem"William Oandasan for Round Valley Songs1986Anna Lee Walters for The Sun Is Not Merciful: Short StoriesCherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa for This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of ColorHelen Barolini for The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writing by Italian American WomenJeff Hannusch for I Hear You Knockin : The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and BluesLinda Hogan for Seeing Through the SunMiguel Algarín for Time's Now/Ya Es TiempoNatasha Borovsky for A Daughter of the NobilityRaymond Federman for Smiles on Washington Square: A Love Story of SortsSusan Howe for My Emily DickinsonTerence Winch for Irish Musicians/American FriendsToshio Mori for Yokohama, California1987Ai for SINAna Castillo for The Mixquiahuala LettersCyn Zarco for CircumnavigationsDaniel McGuire for Portrait of Little Boy in darknessDorothy Bryant for Confessions of Madame Psyche: Memoirs and Letters of Mei-Li MurrowEtheridge Knight for The Essential Etheridge KnightGary Giddins for Celebrating Bird: The Triumph Of Charlie ParkerHarvey Pekar for The New American Splendor Anthology: From Off the Streets of ClevelandJames Welch for Fools CrowJohn Wieners for Selected Poems: 1958–1984Juan Felipe Herrera for Face GamesLucia Chiavola Birnbaum for liberazione della donna: feminism in ItalyMichael Mayo for Practicing Angels: A Contemporary Anthology of San Francisco Bay Area PoetrySeptima Poinsette Clark, Cynthia Stokes Brown for Ready from Within: A First Person NarrativeTerry McMillan for Mama1988Allison Blakely for Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and ThoughtCharles Olson for The Collected Poems of Charles Olson: Excluding the Maximus PoemsDaisy Bates for The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A MemoirDavid Halberstam for The ReckoningEdward Sanders for Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century: Poems 1961–1985Gerald Vizenor for Griever: An American Monkey King in ChinaJimmy Santiago Baca for Martin & Meditations on the South ValleyKesho Y. Scott, Cherry Muhanji, Egyirba High for Tight SpacesMarlon K. Hom for Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco ChinatownBenjamin Hoff for The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal WhiteleyRonald Sukenick for Down and in: Life in the UndergroundSalvatore La Puma for The Boys of BensonhurstToni Morrison for BelovedWing Tek Lum, Tek Lum Lum for Expounding the Doubtful Points1989Alma Luz Villanueva for The Ultraviolet SkyAskia M. Touré for From the Pyramids to the Projects: Poems of Genocide and Resistance!Audre Lorde for A Burst of LightCarolyn Lau for Wode Shuofa: My Way of SpeakingEmory Elliott for Columbia Literary History of the United StatesEduardo Galeano for GenesisFrank Chin for The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co.Henry Louis Gates for The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary CriticismIsabel Allende for Eva LunaJ. California Cooper for Homemade LoveJennifer Stone for Stone's ThrowJosephine Gattuso Hendin for The Right Thing to DoLeslie Scalapino for wayShuntaro Tanikawa for Floating the River in MelancholyCharles Fanning for The Exiles of Erin: Nineteenth-Century Irish-American FictionWilliam Minoru Hohri for Repairing America: An Account of the Movement for Japanese American Redress1990Adrienne Kennedy for People Who Led to My PlaysBarbara Grizzuti Harrison for Italian DaysDaniela Gioseffi for Women on War (Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age)Elizabeth Woody for Hand into Stone: PoemsHualing Nieh for Mulberry and Peach: Two Women of ChinaItabari Njeri for Every Good-Bye Ain't GoneJames M. Freeman for Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-American LivesJohn C. Walter, J. Raymond Jones for The Harlem Fox: J. Raymond Jones and Tammany, 1920–1970John Norton for Light at the End of the BogJosé Emilio González for Vivar a HostosSergei Kan for Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth CenturyLloyd A. Thompson for Romans and BlacksMartin Bernal for Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical CivilizationMichelle T. Clinton, Sesshu Foster for Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural PoetryMiles Davis for MilesPaula Gunn Allen for Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American WomenShirley Geok-lin Lim, Mayumi Tsutakawa, Margarita Donnelly for The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology1991Alejandro Murguía for Southern FrontBell Hooks for Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsBruce Wright for Black Robes, White Justice: Why Our Legal System Doesn't Work for BlacksCharley Trujillo for Soldados: Chicanos in Viet NamD. H. Melhem for Heroism in the New Black Poetry: Introductions & InterviewsDeborah Keenan for Looking for Home: Women Writing About ExileJessica Hagedorn for DogeatersJohn Edgar Wideman for Philadelphia Fire, a novelJoy Harjo for In Mad Love and WarKaren Tei Yamashita for Through the Arc of the Rain ForestLucia Berlin for Homesick: New and Selected StoriesMary Crow Dog for Lakota WomanMeridel Le Sueur for Harvest Song: Collected Essays and StoriesMill Hunk Herald Collective for Overtime: Punchin' Out With the Mill Hunk Herald MagazineNora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer for Haa Tuwunaagu Yis, for Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit OratoryR. Baxter Miller for The Art and Imagination of Langston HughesThomas Centolella for Terra Firma1992A'Lelia Perry Bundles for Madam C.J. WalkerArt Spiegelman for The Complete Maus: A Survivor's TaleBenjamin Alire Sáenz for Calendar of DustDonna J. Haraway for Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of NatureFritjof Capra for Belonging to the universe: Explorations on the frontiers of science and spiritualityJosé Antonio Burciaga for Undocumented Love/Amor Indocumentado: A Personal Anthology of PoetryKeith Gilyard for Voices of the Self: A Study of Language CompetenceLucy Thompson for To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok WomanNorma Field for In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's EndPeter Bacho for CebuPeter Kalifornsky for Dena'ina Legacy: K'tl'egh'i Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter KalifornskyRaymond Andrews for Jessie and Jesus and Cousin ClaireSandra Scofield for Beyond DeservingSheila Hamanaka for JourneyStephen R. Fox for The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans During World War IISteven R. Carter for Hansberry's Drama: Commitment Amid Complexity,Verlyn Klinkenborg for The Last Fine TimeWilliam B. Branch, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson for Black Thunder: An Anthology of African-American Drama1993Asake Bomani, Belvie Rooks for Paris Connections: African American Artists in ParisChristopher Mogil, Peter Woodrow for We Gave Away a FortuneCornel West for Prophetic Thought in Postmodern TimesDenise Giardina for Unquiet EarthDiane Glancy for Claiming BreathEugene B. Redmond for The Eye in the CeilingFrancisco X. Alarcón for Snake PoemsGerald Graff for Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American EducationJack Beatty for The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael CurleyLeroy V. Quintana for The History of HomeKatherine Peter for Neets'aii Gwiindaii: Living in the Chandalar CountryNelson George for Elevating the Game: Black Men and BasketballNinotchka Rosca for Twice Blessed, a novel1994Giose Rimanelli for Benedetta in GuysterlandEric Drooker for Flood!: A Novel in PicturesGraciela Limón for In Search of BernabeGregory J. Reed for Economic Empowerment Through the ChurchJanet Campbell Hale for Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native DaughterJill Nelson for Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro ExperienceLawson Fusao Inada for Legends from CampNicole Blackman for Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets CafePaul Gilroy for The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-ConsciousnessRonald Takaki for A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural AmericaRose L. Glickman for Daughters of FeministsTino Villanueva for Scene from the Movie GIANTVirginia L. Kroll for Wood-Hoopoe Willie1995Abraham Rodriguez for Spidertown, a novelHerb Boyd, Robert L. Allen for Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America—An AnthologyDenise Chavez for Face of an AngelJohn Egerton for Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the SouthJohn Ross for Rebellion from the Roots: Indian Uprising in ChiapasThomas Avena for Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDSLinda Raymond for Rocking the Babies, a novelLi-Young Lee for The Winged Seed: A RemembranceMarianna De Marco Torgovnick for Crossing Ocean ParkwayMarnie Mueller for Green Fires: Assault on Eden: A Novel of the Ecuadorian RainforestPeter Quinn for Banished Children of Eve, A Novel of Civil War New YorkSandra Martz for I Am Becoming the Woman I've WantedGordon Henry Jr. for The Light PeopleTricia Rose for Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America1996Agate Nesaule for A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and ExileArthur Sze for ArchipelagoChang-Rae Lee for Native SpeakerChitra Banerjee Divakaruni for Arranged MarriageE.J. Miller Laino for Girl HurtGlenn C. Loury for One by One from the Inside Out: Race and Responsibility in AmericaJames W. Loewen for Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got WrongJoe Sacco, Edward Said for PalestineKimiko Hahn for The Unbearable HeartMaria Espinosa for LongingRobert Viscusi for AstoriaSherman Alexie for Reservation BluesRon Sakolsky, Fred Weihan Ho for Sounding Off!: Music as Resistance / Rebellion / RevolutionStephanie Cowell for The Physician of London: The Second Part of the Seventeenth-Century Trilogy of Nicholas CookeWilliam H. Gass for The Tunnel1997Alurista for Et Tu ... RazaDerrick Bell for Gospel Choirs: Psalms Of Survival In An Alien Land Called HomeDorothy Barresi for The Post-Rapture DinerGuillermo Gómez-Peña for The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems, and Loqueras for the End of the CenturyLouis Owens for NightlandMartín Espada for Imagine the Angels of Bread: PoemsMontserrat Fontes for Dreams of the Centaur, a novelNoel Ignatiev for Race TraitorShirley Geok-lin Lim for Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of HomelandsSunaina Maira for Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North AmericaThulani Davis for Maker of SaintsTom De Haven for Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, a novelWilliam M. Banks for Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American LifeBrenda Knight for Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution1998Allison Adelle Hedge Coke for Dog Road WomanAngela Y. Davis for Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie HolidayBrenda Marie Osbey for All Saints: New and Selected PoemsDon DeLillo for UnderworldJim Barnes for On Native Ground: Memoirs and ImpressionsJohn A. Williams for Safari West: PoemsNancy Rawles for Love Like GumboNora Okja Keller for Comfort WomanSandra Benitez for Bitter Grounds, a novelScott DeVeaux for The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical HistoryThomas Lynch for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade1999Alice McDermott for Charming BillyAnna Linzer for Ghost DancingBrian Ward for Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race RelationsChiori Santiago for Home to Medicine MountainE. Donald Two-Rivers for Survivor's Medicine: Short StoriesEdwidge Danticat for The Farming of BonesJudith Roche, Meg McHutchison for First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific RimGioia Timpanelli for Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of SicilyGloria Naylor for The Men of Brewster Place, a novelJames D. Houston for The Last ParadiseJerry Lipka, Gerald V. Mohatt, Ciulistet Group for Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup¡k Eskimo ExamplesTrey Ellis for Right Here, Right NowJosip Novakovich for Salvation and Other DisastersLauro Flores for The Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of U.S. Hispanic LiteratureLuís Alberto Urrea for Nobody's Son: Notes from an American LifeNelson George for Hip Hop America: Hip Hop and the Molding of Black Generation XSpeer Morgan for The Freshour CylindersGary Gach for What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to HiphopChiori Santiago, author, Judith Lowry, illustrator, Home to Medicine Mountain2000Esther G. Belin for From the Belly of My BeautyAllan J. Ryan for The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native ArtAndrés Montoya for The Ice Worker Sings and Other PoemsCamille Peri, Kate Moses for Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life ParenthoodDavid A. J. Richards for Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic IdentityDavid Toop for ExoticaElva Trevino Hart for Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant ChildEmil Guillermo for Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective; With an Introduction by Ishmael ReedFrank Chin for The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co.Helen Thomas for Front Row at the White House : My Life and TimesJanisse Ray for Ecology of a Cracker ChildhoodJohn Russell Rickford, Russell John Rickford for Spoken Soul: The Story of Black EnglishLeroy TeCube for Year in Nam: A Native American Soldier's StoryLois-Ann Yamanaka for Heads By HarryMichael Lally for It's Not Nostalgia: Poetry & ProseMichael Patrick MacDonald for All Souls: A Family Story from SouthieRahna Reiko Rizzuto for Why She Left Us, a novelRobert Creeley for The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975–2005Editor/Publisher: Ronald SukenickJack E. White, JournalismFrank Chin, Lifetime AchievementRobert Creeley, Lifetime Achievement2001Amanda J. Cobb for Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories: The Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852–1949Andrea Dworkin for Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's LiberationCarolyne Wright for Seasons of Mangoes and BrainfireChalmers Johnson for Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American EmpireCheri Register for Packinghouse Daughter: A MemoirChris Ware for Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on EarthDiana Garcia for When Living Was a Labor CampElizabeth Nunez for Bruised HibiscusJanet McAdams for Island of Lost LuggagePhilip Whalen for Overtime: Selected PoemsRussell Leong for Phoenix Eyes and Other StoriesSandra M. Gilbert for Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems, 1969–1999Ted Joans for TeducationTillie Olsen for SilencesWilliam S. Penn for Killing Time With StrangersMalcolm Margolin, EditorTed Joans, Lifetime AchievementTillie Olsen, Lifetime AchievementPhilip Whalen Lifetime Achievement2002Aaron A. Abeyta, ColchaSusanne Antonetta, The Body Toxic: An Environmental MemoirRilla Askew, Fire in BeulahTananarive Due, The Living BloodGloria Frym, Homeless at HomeDana Gioia, Interrogations at NoonLeAnne Howe, Shell ShakerAlex Kuo, Lipstick and Other StoriesMichael N. Nagler, Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent FutureDonald Phelps, Reading the Funnies : Looking at Great Cartoonists Throughout the First Half of the 20th CenturyAl Young, The Sound of Dreams Remembered: Poems, 1990–2000Jessel Miller, Angels in the VineyardsLerone Bennett, Lifetime AchievementJack Hirschman, Lifetime Achievement2003Kevin Baker, Paradise AlleyDebra Magpie Earling, Perma RedDaniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon PapersRick Heide, ed., Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from CaliforniaIgor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, Vera Metcalf, and Lars Krutak, eds, Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, Our Words Put to Paper: Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and HistoryAlejandro Murguía, This War Called Love: Nine StoriesJack Newfield, The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the ManiaJoseph Papaleo, Italian StoriesEric Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and ActivistsJewell Parker Rhodes, Douglass' Women, a novelRachel Simon, Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life JourneyVelma Wallis, Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon RiverMax Rodriguez, QBR: The Black Book Review2004Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent, a novelDavid Cole, Enemy Aliens: Double Standards And Constitutional Freedoms In The War On TerrorismCharisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in AmericaKristin Hunter Lattany, Breaking AwayA. Robert Lee, Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American FictionsDiane Sher Lutovich, What I StoleRuth Ozeki, All Over CreationRenato Rosaldo, Prayer to Spider Woman / Rezo a la Mujer AranaScott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the SixtiesMichael Walsh, And All the Saints2005Bernard W. Bell, The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots And Modern Literary BranchesCecelie Berry, Rise Up Singing: Black Women Writers on MotherhoodJeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop GenerationJulie Chibbaro, RedemptionRichard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on TerrorAlisha S. Drabek and Karen R. Adams, The Red Cedar of Afognak, A Driftwood JourneyRalph M. Flores, The Horse in the Kitchen: Stories of a Mexican-American FamilyHiroshi Kashiwagi, Swimming in the American: A Memoir And Selected WritingsRobert F. Kennedy, Jr., Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our DemocracyDon Lee, Country of Origin, a novelLamont B. Steptoe, A Long Movie of ShadowsDon West, No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose and Poems, eds Jeff Biggers and George BrosiJournalism: Bill Berkowitz2006MacKenzie Bezos, The Testing of Luther Albright, a novelMatt Briggs, Shoot the BuffaloDavid P. Diaz, The White Tortilla: Reflections of a Second-Generation Mexican-AmericanDarryl Dickson-Carr, The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American FictionThomas Ferraro, Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in AmericaTim Z. Hernandez, Skin TaxJosh Kun, Audiotopia: Music, Race, and AmericaP. Lewis, NatePeter Metcalfe, Gumboot Determination: The Story of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health ConsortiumKevin J. Mullen, The Toughest Gang in Town: Police Stories from Old San FranciscoDoris Seale and Beverly Slapin, eds., A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for ChildrenMatthew Shenoda, Somewhere ElseCarlton T. Spiller, Scalding HeartChris Hamilton-Emery, EditorJay Wright, Lifetime Achievement2007Daniel Cassidy, How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the CrossroadsMichael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of DisasterRigoberto González, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano MariposaReyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains, a novelErnestine Hayes, Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native MemoirPatricia Klindienst, The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic AmericansGary Panter, Jimbo's InfernoJeffrey F. L. Partridge, Beyond Literary ChinatownJudith Roche, Wisdom of the BodyKali Vanbaale, The Space Between2008Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem Being Young and Arab in AmericaDouglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War IIJonathan Curiel, Al’ America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic RootsNora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, Lydia T. Black, and Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká, Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804Maria Mazziotti Gillan, All That Lies Between UsNikki Giovanni, The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968–1998C. S. Giscombe, Prairie StyleAngela Jackson, Where I Must Go, a novelL. Luis Lopez, Each Month I SingTom Lutz, Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in AmericaFae Myenne Ng, Steer Toward RockYuko Taniguchi, The Ocean in the ClosetLorenzo Thomas, Don't Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition, ed. Aldon Lynn NielsenFrank B. Wilderson III, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and ApartheidJ. J. Phillips, Lifetime Achievement2009Houston A. Baker, Jr., Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Right EraDanit Brown, Ask for a ConvertibleJericho Brown, PleaseJosé Antonio Burciaga, The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga, eds Mimi R. Gladstein and Daniel ChacónClaire Hope Cummings, Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of SeedsStella Pope Duarte, If I Die in JuarezLinda Gregg, All of It Singing: New and Selected PoemsSuheir Hammad, Breaking PoemsRichard Holmes, The Age of WonderGeorge E. Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The A.A.C.M. and American Experimental MusicPatricia Santana, Ghosts of El GrulloJack Spicer, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, ed. Peter Gizzi and Kevin KillianMiguel Algarín, Lifetime Achievement2010Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical MusicSherwin Bitsui, Flood SongNancy Carnevale, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890–1945Dave Eggers, ZeitounSesshu Foster, World Ball NotebookStephen D. Gutierrez, Live from Fresno y LosVictor Lavalle, The Big MachineFrançois Mandeville, This Is What They Say, translated by Ron Scollon from ChipewyanBich Minh Nguyen, Short GirlsFranklin Rosemont and Robin D. G. Kelley, eds., Black, Brown, & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the DiasporaJerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, eds., Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic and Postromantic PoetryKathryn Waddell Takara, Pacific Raven: Hawai`i PoemsPamela Uschuk, Crazy Love: New PoemsKatha Politt, Lifetime AchievementQuincy Troupe, Lifetime Achievement2011Keith Gilyard, John Oliver KillensAkbar Ahmed, Journey Into America: The Challenge of IslamCamille Dungy, Suck on the MarrowKaren Tei Yamashita, I HotelWilliam W. Cook and James Tatum, African American Writers and Classical TraditionGerald Vizenor, Shrouds of White EarthEric Gansworth, Extra IndiansIvan Argüelles, The Death of StalinGeoffrey Alan Argent, ed., The Complete Plays of Jean Racine: Volume 1: The Fratricides, translated by Argent from FrenchNeela Vaswani, You Have Given Me a CountrySasha Pimentel Chacón, Insides She SwallowedMiriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores, eds., The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History of Culture in the United StatesCarmen Giménez Smith, Bring Down the Little BirdsLuis Valdez, Lifetime AchievementJohn A. Williams, Lifetime Achievement2012Annia Ciezadlo, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and WarArlene Kim, What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes?Ed Bok Lee, WhorledAdilifu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black SuperheroesRob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the PoorShann Ray, American MasculineAlice Rearden, translator; Ann Fienup-Riordan, ed., Qaluyaarmiuni Nunamtenek Qanemciput: Our Nelson Island StoriesTouré, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black NowAmy Waldman, The SubmissionMary Winegarden, The Translator’s SisterKevin Young, Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad RebelsEugene B. Redmond, Lifetime Achievement2013Will Alexander, Singing In Magnetic Hoofbeat: Essays, Prose, Texts, Interviews, and a Lecture, Essay PressJacob M. Appel, The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up, CargoPhilip P. Choy, San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide To Its History & Architecture, City LightsAmanda Coplin, The Orchardist, Harper CollinsNatalie Diaz, When My Brother Was An Aztec, Copper Canyon PressLouise Erdrich, The Round House, Harper CollinsAlan Gilbert (American academic), Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence, University of ChicagoJudy Grahn, A Simple Revolution: The Making of an Activist Poet, Aunt Lute BooksJoy Harjo, Crazy Brave: A Memoir, W.W. Norton & Co.Demetria Martinez, The Block Captain's Daughter, University of Oklahoma PressDaniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, Blood Songs, The Ecstatic ExchangeD. G. Nanouk Okpik, Corpse Whale, University of Arizona PressSeth Rosenfeld, Subversives: The FBI’s War On Student Radical and Reagan's Rise to Power, Farrar, Straus & GirouxChristopher B. Teuton, Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liar's Club, University of North CarolinaLew Welch, Ring of Bone: Collected Poems, City LightsIvan Argüelles, Lifetime AchievementGreil Marcus, Lifetime AchievementFloyd Salas, Lifetime Achievement2014Andrew Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, Metropolitan BooksJoshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Black Against Empire; The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, University of California PressJuan Delgado (poetry) and Thomas McGovern (photography), Vital Signs, Heyday BooksAlex Espinoza, The Five Acts of Diego León, Random HouseJonathan Scott Holloway, Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940, University of North Carolina PressJoan Naviyuk Kane, Hyperboreal, University of Pittsburgh PressJamaica Kincaid, See Now Then, Farrar, Straus and GirouxTanya Olson, Boyishly, YesYes BooksSterling D. Plumpp, Home/Bass, Third World PressEmily Raboteau, Searching For Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, Atlantic Monthly PressJerome Rothenberg with Heriberto Yepez, Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader, Commonwealth BooksNick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, Metropolitan BooksMargaret Wrinkle, Wash, Atlantic Monthly PressKoon Woon, Water Chasing Water, Kaya PressArmond White, Anti-Censorship AwardMichael Parenti, Lifetime Achievement2015Hisham Aidi, Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture (Vintage)Arlene Biala, her beckoning hands (Word Poetry)Arthur Dong, Forbidden City, USA: Chinese American Nightclubs, 1936-1970 (DeepFocus Productions)Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Beacon Press)Peter J. Harris, The Black Man of Happiness (Black Man of Happiness Project)Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead Books)Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (Simon & Schuster)Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account (Pantheon)Manuel Luis Martinez, Los Duros (Floricanto Press)Craig Santos Perez, from unincorporated territory [guma’] (Omnidawn)Carlos Santana with Ashley Kahn and Hal Miller, The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (Little, Brown and Company)Ira Sukrungruang, Southside Buddhist (University of Tampa Press)Astra Taylor, The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Henry Holt)Anne Waldman, Lifetime Achievement