Last night, in a ceremony at the New School in New York City, the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its 2022 awards, narrowed down from an impressive list of finalists in six categories: Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Winners in each of the NBCC’s special categories—the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the inaugural NBCC Service Award, the John Leonard Prize for the best first book, the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and the second annual Toni Morrison Achievement Award—were also announced.
Here are the winners:
Autobiography
Hua Hsu, Stay True: A Memoir (Doubleday)
Biography
Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking)
Criticism
Timothy Bewes, Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age (Columbia University Press)
Fiction
Ling Ma, Bliss Montage: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Nonfiction
Isaac Butler, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act (Bloomsbury)
Poetry
Cynthia Cruz, Hotel Oblivion (Four Way Books)
The Gregg Barrios Prize for Book in Translation
Andrey Kurkov, translated by Boris Dralyuk, Grey Bees (Deep Vellum)
The John Leonard Prize
Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez (Tin House)
The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
Jennifer Wilson
Toni Morrison Achievement Award
City Lights
The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
Joy Harjo