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InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 02:29 pm: | 
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The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award is the first financially and professionally strongly backed award for African American writing, by African American writers. Have any of you heard of Percival Everett's Erasure? Well, this is one of the reasons why, he won the first one last year.
I think this prize is the antidote for black literary writers facing a prejudiced white literary community, and an often indifferent black one.
So here's the release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLACK LITERARY AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
A novel set in contemporary South Africa, a coming of age story set against the backdrop of the Atlanta Child murders, and a history of African American literary societies were the winners of the 2003 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. South African writer Zakes Mda, a professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University won in the fiction category for his novel The Heart of Redness (Farrar Straus Giroux). Tayari Jones won in the debut fiction category for her novel Leaving Atlanta (Warner Books). Ms. Jones is a 2000 winner of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Elizabeth McHenry, an Assistant Professor of English at New York University won in the nonfiction category for Forgotten Readers Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies (Duke University Press). Each winner received $10,000.
The winners were announced at a black-tie awards ceremony Saturday October 11, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Hurston/Wright Award is presented by the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation in a partnership with Borders Books & Music.
Acclaimed novelist Colson Whitehead and best-selling writer Bebe Moore Campbell were among the presenters. Award-winning children’s book author Eloise Greenfield received the Hurston/Wright North Star Award in recognition of her contributions to children’s literature.
Two finalists in each category received $5,000. In the fiction category the finalists were Jewell Parker Rhodes nominated for the historical novel based on the life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass’ Women (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books) and Victor Lavalle, author of The Ecstatic (Crown). In the debut fiction category, finalists were Nicole Bailey-Williams author of A Little Piece of Sky (Doubleday/Harlem Moon)and Zelda Lockhart author of Fifth Born (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books) Karla FC Holloway author of Passed On African American Mourning Stories (Duke University Press) and Carole Merritt author of The Herndons (The University of Georgia Press) were finalists in the nonfiction category.
The writers who served as judges for the 2003 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award are : Fiction: Kuwana Haulsey, Anthony Grooms and Patricia Elam; Debut Fiction: Jeffrey Renard Allen, Veronica Chambers, and Crystal Wilkinson; Nonfiction: Jewelle Gomez, Valerie Boyd and David Wright.
The Hurston/Wright Foundation, headquartered in Hyattsville, Maryland, also presents an annual summer workshop for Black writers and an annual award, The Hurston/Wright Award for Black College fiction writers.
For more information about the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award ceremony and winners and /or the Hurston/Wright Foundation programs, contact Clyde McElvene at The Hurston/Wright Foundation at 301-683-2134. |
Mr. Immigrant
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 04:52 pm: |
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These critics are not of a high enough caliber to judge. They will need better minds judging if they are to rival the other Prestige awards.
While I didn't enjoy THE KNOWN WORLD, because it was so truthful and reminded me of some blacks in my homeland, I cannot deny its brilliance or its timeless revelance. It deserves the Book Award.
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InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 06:12 pm: |
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I agree with you on the judges. More established writers need to say yes when asked (and they are asked). It would help its credibility.
Still, as you admit, they did get a really good book, and consistently awarding impressive books will help its prestige in itself. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 02:49 am: |
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Who were the judges? Who are the "more" established writers? The editorial board of Callaloo?
InPrint:
Erasure won because the white and black literarati neglected Everett's work? |
InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 02:25 pm: |
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Yukio-
No, I think it won because it was the most innovative, important book by a black author that year. I wasn't trying to imply that the organization rights wrongs, rather that it seems to hold up the best artistic creation of its pool, devoid of the typical expectations of white judges (that it be either about racism, inner city violence, or the exotic) and the dominant populist commercial leanings of the only black award that you hear about, the NCAAP Award, which is an award from a mass audience that by its nature rewards fame before literary merit.
I know you were joking, but I'd be happy if it was judged by the editorial board of Callaloo, because I agree with their "art first" leanings.
To be fair to the big league lit writers, they are completely swamped and wading through 30 books is a major time commitment. That's why peer awards (like the NBA or ABA) are traditional judged by those who aren't being swamped with speaking engagements, charity requests, etc. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 03:42 pm: |
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InPrint:
I liked Erasure, reminded me of Ellison, but i thought Frenzy was more provocative. |
InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 04:08 pm: |
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Yukio-
Agreed. If only the H/W had been up and running in 1997.
My favorite Everett book though is Grand Canyon Inc. I like Glyph, but not the ending. |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 12:03 am: |
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I am currently trying to work my way through "The Known World." It is well-written and carefully researched, one of those kind of books that needs to have been written and is worthy of acclaim. The only problem is that its laden subject matter is depressing, and to me its like taking bitter medicine that's good for me. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 07:34 pm: |
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I've only read Erasure and Frenzy....and several short stories in Callaloo....i'm bout to start Caryl Phillips' new book.... |
Fool on the Hill
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - 11:02 pm: |
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Yukio,
I'd like to know what you think of Caryl Phillips. EVery time I try to read him I drift of into a state of utter boredom. I'd never thought I'd meet up with a writer who could make the middle passage seem dull, and yet Phillips managed the task. |
InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 10:02 am: |
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Fool-
I'm telling you, read Higher Ground. Avoid Cambridge and go straight to the good stuff. And try and forget what a letch he is. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 04:40 pm: |
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FOTH:
With Phillips it is a hit or miss...i enjoyed Crossing the RIver; i really appreciated the end. He is an artist! I couldn't finish Final Passage, however. I drifted to sleep, with saliva dribbling down my lower lip, staining page three, paragraph three, line three!
Once i complete the new one, as well as Higher Ground, i'll holla back! |
steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 04:15 pm: |
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I liked "The Heart of Redness," and hope it gets some exposure. He has another one due out soon called "Our Lady of Excelsior." I liked "Erasure," although it was kind of conservative for my taste, but I preferred another one of last year's finalists, Reginald McKnight's "He Sleeps," whose protagonist, like Camagu in "The Heart of Redness," is an American outsider in Africa. Of last year's finalists in the nonfiction category, I thought Ken Wiwa's memoir, "In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy" was an extraordinary book -- about his relationship with his father, Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who in 1995 was executed by the military government for exposing human rights abuses by Shell Oil Company and the Nigerian goverment. Hard to do it justice in a few sentences, but Ken Wiwa the son is a somewhat reluctant activist who spends three years coming to terms with his father's legacy, and during that time he interviews other children of martyrs like Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma and Nkosinathi Biko of South Africa. It's a beautiful book I think. I'd be interested in finding out this year's finalists in the nonfiction category.
Besides the Ken Wiwa book, I read these other "African" books last month: "Cry the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton, "My Traitor's Heart" by Rian Malan, "The River Between" by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and a new one called "Mandela, Mobutu, and Me" by Lynne Duke, an African American newswoman and former Jo'burg bureau chief for the Washington Post (but don't confuse Lynne with CNN's dimpled anchorwoman Carol Lin, because she apparently studied African politics at Columbia University and she's also unbelievably brave to put herself in some of the situations she describes). I read it for her background on present-day South Africa but she also covers the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, its roots and its domino effect on the civil wars in Congo-Zaire (and the transformation of Robert Mugabe's image from one of nobility to one of infamy), criticism of Clinton administration policy on Rwanda, the AIDS epidemic, the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission, and a chapter called "Lyrics of African Lives."
Other African books I picked up at the used bookstore: Camara Laye's "The Dark Child," Wole Soyinka's "Aké: The Years of Childhood" (plus a play of his whose title I can't think of), "Ambiguous Adventure" by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Achebe's "Hopes and Impediments," which contains an interesting analysis of Amos Tutuola's "The Palm-Wine Drinkard" as well as one about Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (which I'm currently reading in order to better appreciate Achebe's essay). Then you have an "Indian" author like V.S. Naipaul who's written about Africa in more derogatory terms than any white man (S. Africa is almost three percent Indian). Have you read "A Bend in the River"? I have and it's a really "good" novel, although I hate his politics. Achebe says this: "But while Conrad gives us an Africa of malignant mystery and incomprehensibility, Naipaul's method is to ridicule claims to any human achievement in Africa." Joyce Carol Oates's introduction to the Signet edition of HoD acknowledges the Achebe position, by the way. I haven't read much of JCO but I plan to because she's what, one of only a handful of white writers who review black books and create black characters with any kind of psychological depth and complexity? (see: Bebe Moore Campbell's interview with Valerie Martin in this month's BIBR, last month's Stanley Crouch CNN interview discussing Phillip Roth's "The Human Stain," etc.)
That's precisely what's missing from "Cry, the Beloved Country," IMO, although I don't claim any special knowledge of literature. It's a protest novel which Alan Paton said was written "to influence my fellow whites," and in that respect it was very successful in drawing worldwide attention to the situation in South Africa. Maybe it could be compared to something like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (which I haven't read), which was praised among African Americans and whites during the author's lifetime but then was subject to criticism after fifty years later. Yes, it contains racial stereotyping in various forms and criticizes one part of the dominant ideology by using another part of that same ideology, but as long as it's being read and used in school curriculums, I like the idea that it be taught alongside a book by a black South African author. I haven't read "Mine Boy" (1946), but I noticed that Playthell Benjamin mentions its author, Peter Abrahams on the first page of "Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk" (although, like many names in that book, it's misspelled). Zakes Mda's "Ways of Dying" might also be a good choice because Toloki and Noria both move from a rural area to the city, experience violence in many forms, and Noria, like Gertrude in "Cry," becomes a prostitute. But Toloki doesn't fit the part because I see him more or less as a musician. In some respects I compare him to Kobo Abe's "The Box Man" -- they're both homeless and both survive on their own unique forms of creativity; Toloki by wailing at funerals and the Box Man by scribbling inside his box, although "The Box Man" gets into the "criminality" of non-conformity in a conformist society. But both novels seem to be making a statement about the relationship of creativity to poverty and/or social conflict, which was what attracted me to Tutuola's essay, "Work and Play in 'The Palm Wine Drinkard.'"
Steve
PS Donna Summer mentions me and all the members of her first band in her new biography, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love to Love You Baby," no, it's actually called "Ordinary Girl" (with apologies to Raymond Carver). Hey, I think it's really sweet after all these years. You know she didn't have to. |
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