March 22, 2024, 6:37am
Last night, in a ceremony at the New School in New York City, the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its 2023 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 Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the 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 Toni Morrison Achievement Award—were also announced.
Here are the winners:
Autobiography
Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon: A Memoir: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster)
Biography
Jonny Steinberg, Winnie & Nelson: A Portrait of a Marriage (Knopf)
Criticism
Tina Post, Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression (NYU Press)
Fiction
Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home (Knopf)
Nonfiction
Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Poetry
Kim Hyesoon, Phantom Pain Wings, translated by Don Mee Choi (New Directions)
The Gregg Barrios Prize for Book in Translation
Maureen Freely’s translation of Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü (Transit Books)
The John Leonard Prize
Tahir Hamut Izgil, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide, translated by Joshua L. Freeman (Penguin Press)
NBCC Service Award
Marion Winik
The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
Becca Rothfeld
Toni Morrison Achievement Award
American Library Association
The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
Judy Blume
