This archive report was first published on 21 November 2019.
On November 20, 2019, the National Book Award winners were announced at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. The event, hosted by actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton, was attended by over 700 guests.
The National Book Award, established in 1950, is one of the country's most prestigious and coveted literary prizes. This year's fiction finalists represented a diverse cross-section of contemporary literature, including two debut authors: Kali Fajardo-Anstine and Julia Phillips.
Susan Choi won the National Book Award for fiction for her novel 'Trust Exercise', a story about two students who fall in love at a competitive performing arts school in the 1980s. The judges praised the novel for blending 'the intellectual rigor of post-modern technique with a story that is timely, mesmerizing, and in the end, unsettling.'
Ms. Choi, a Pulitzer finalist in 2004 for her novel 'American Woman', said in an acceptance speech that she was still surprised and grateful to be able to write for a living. 'Given what we're all facing today and what many people are facing in an even more intense sense, I find it an astonishing privilege that this is what I get to do for a living.'
The award for nonfiction went to Sarah M. Broom for her memoir 'The Yellow House', which tells the story of her New Orleans home and how her family scattered after Hurricane Katrina. Ms. Broom credited her mother, who raised 12 children, for instilling in her a love of language.
The National Book Award for translated literature was won by László Krasznahorkai for his novel 'Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming', which he shared with his translator, Ottilie Mulzet. The category was added in 2018, opening the prize up to fiction and nonfiction works that are translated into English and published in the United States.
Other winners included Martin W. Sandler, who won the prize for young people's literature for his book '1919 The Year That Changed America', and Arthur Sze, who won the poetry prize for his collection 'Sight Lines.'
Edmund White received the award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an award that has in previous years gone to literary legends like Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King. Mr. White, who is best known for his works 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty', was an early pioneer of gay literature and helped to bring stories centered on same-sex couples into the mainstream.
