Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program in the United States honors published Black writers worldwide for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organization of Black writers. It is granted for fiction, nonfiction and poetry, selected in a juried competition.

Each fall, writers and publishers are invited to submit fiction, nonfiction and poetry books published that year. Panels of acclaimed writers serve as judges to select nominees, finalists and winners. A number of merit awards are also presented. Nominees are honored at the Legacy Awards ceremony, held the third Friday in October. The awards ceremony is hosted and organized by the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

Merit awards

In addition to the Legacy Awards, the Hurston/Wright board of directors may present Merit awards during the annual Legacy Award ceremony.

• The North Star Award pays homage to the significance of the North Star for enslaved Africans, who looked to it as a guide to gaining freedom in the North. It is awarded to individuals whose writing and/or service to the writing community serve as a beacon of brilliant accomplishment and as an inspiration to others.

• The Ella Baker Award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice.

• The Madam C.J. Walker Award, named for the pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist, recognizes exceptional innovation in supporting and sustaining Black literature.

Legacy Award winners

Debut Fiction

Year	Author	Work
2002	David Anthony Durham	Gabriel’s Story
2003	Tayari Jones	Leaving Atlanta
2004	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	Purple Hibiscus
2005	Chris Abani	GraceLand
2006	Denise Nicholas	Freshwater Road
2007	Aminatta Forna	Ancestor Stones
2008	Kwame Dawes	She's Gone
2016	Sanderia Faye	Mourner's Bench
2017	JJ Amaworo Wilson	Damnificados
2018	Ladee Hubbard	The Talented Ribkins
2020	Jeffrey Colvin	Africaville
2021	Rita Woods	Remembrance

Fiction

Year	Author	Work
2002	Percival Everett	Erasure
2003	Zakes Mda	The Heart of Redness
2004	Mat Johnson	Hunting in Harlem
2005	Maryse Condé	Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?
2006	Nancy Rawles	My Jim
2007	Edward P. Jones	All Aunt Hagar's Children
2008	Junot Diaz	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2009	Uwem Akpan	Say You're One of Them
2010	Percival Everett	I Am Not Sidney Poitier
2011	Danielle Evans	Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
2012	Helen Oyeyemi	Mr. Fox
2013	Esi Edugyan	Half-Blood Blues
2014	NoViolet Bulawayo	We Need New Names
2015	Laila Lalami	The Moor's Account
2016	James Hannaham	Delicious Foods
2017	Colson Whitehead	The Underground Railroad
2018	Alain Mabanckou	Black Moses
2019	Nafissa Thompson-Spires	Heads of the Colored People
2020	Curdella Forbes	A Tall History of Sugar
2021	Percival Everett	Telephone

Nonfiction

Year	Author	Work
2002	Ken Wiwa	In the Shadow of a Saint:  A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy
2003	Elizabeth McHenry	Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies
2004	Wil Haygood	In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr.
2005	Alexis De Veaux	Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
2006	John Hope Franklin	Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
2007	Wangari Maathai	Unbowed: A Memoir
2008	Edwige Danticat	Brother, I'm Dying
2009	Frank B. Wilderson	Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid
2010	Robin Kelley	Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
2011	Isabel Wilkerson	The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
2012	Tomiko Brown-Nagin	Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement
2013	Fredrick Harris	The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics
2014	Craig Wilder	Ebony & Ivy
2015	Elizabeth Nunez	Not For Everyday Use
2016	Pamela Newkirk	Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
2017	Kali Nicole Gross	Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America
2018	Tiya Miles	The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits
2019	Imani Perry	May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem
2020	Albert Woodfox	Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope
2021	Marcia Chatelain	Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Poetry

Year	Author	Work
2007	Patricia Smith	Teahouse of the Almighty
2008	Kyle G. Dargan	Bouquet of Hungers
2009	Myronn Hardy	The Headless Saints
2010	Rita Dove Haki R. Madhubuti	Sonata Mulattica: Poems Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems
2011	Elizabeth Alexander	Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010
2012	Evie Shockley	the new black
2013	Lucille Clifton	The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010
2014	Amaud Jamaul Johnson	Darktown Follies
2015	Claudia Rankine	Citizen: An American Lyric
2016	Vievee Francis	Forest Primeval
2017	Donika Kelly	Bestiary
2018	Evie Shockley	Semiautomatic
2019	Terrance Hayes	American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
2020	Ladan Osman	Exiles of Eden
2021	Rachel Eliza Griffiths	Seeing the Body

Contemporary Fiction

Year	Author	Work
2005	Tracy Price-Thompson	A Woman's Worth
2006	Clyde W. Ford	The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries

2022 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• This Life, Quntos KunQuest (Agate Bolden)

Nominees:

• The House of Rust, Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (GrayWolf Press)
• Young Blood, Sifiso Mzobe (Catalyst Press)
• The Final Revival of Opal and Nev, Dawnie Walton (37 Ink)

Fiction

Winner:

• The Trees, Percival Everett (Graywolf Press)

Nominees:

• Nazaré, J.J. Amaworo Wilson (PM Press)
• Yellow Wife, Sadeqa Johnson (Simon & Schuster)
• The Perishing, Natashia Deon (Counterpoint)
• Rib King, Ladee Hubbard (Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins)
• Reconstruction: Stories, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Small Beer Press)

Nonfiction: Memoir/Biography

Winner:

• Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay, Shanna Greene Benjamin (The University of North Carolina Press)

Nominees:

• Bird Uncaged, Marlon Peterson (Bold Type Books)
• Read Until You Understand, Farah Jasmine Griffin (W. W. Norton & Company)

Nonfiction: Historical/Social/Political

Winner:

• Born in Blackness, Howard W. French (Liveright)

Nominees:

• We Do This Till We Free Us, Mariame Kaba (Haymarket Books)
• Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, Daphne Brooks (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)

Poetry

Winner:

• No Ruined Stone, Shara McCallum (Alice James Books)

Nominees:

• Tragic City, Clemonce Heard (Anhinga Press)
• More Perfect Union, Teri Ellen Cross Davis (Mad Creek Books)
• Sho, Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)
• I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love, Mahogany L. Browne (Haymarket Books)
• Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth, Yusef Komunyakaa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2021 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Remembrance, Rita Woods (Forge Books)

Nominees:

• The Coyotes of Carthage, Steven Wright (Ecco)
• Black Sunday, Tola Rotimi Abraham (Catapult)

Fiction

Winner:

• Telephone, Percival Everett (Graywolf Press)

Finalists:

• Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor)
• The Freedom Artist, Ben Okri (Akashic Books)

Nominees:

• These Bodies, Morgan Christie (Tolsun Books)
• Book of the Little Axe, Lauren Francis-Sharma (Grove Press)
• Black Bottom Saints, Alice Randall (Amistad Books)

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Marcia Chatelain (Liveright)

Finalists:

• Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War, Vincent Brown (Belknap Press)
• The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Deirdre Mask (St. Martin's Press)

Nominees:

• Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, Ijeoma Oluo (Seal Press)
• The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another, Ainissa Ramirez (The MIT Press)
• Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, Natasha Trethewey (Ecco)

Poetry

Winner:

• Seeing the Body, Rachel Eliza Griffiths (W. W. Norton & Company)

Finalists:

• Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount (Four Way Books)
• Pale Colors in a Tall Field, Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Nominees:

• Jump the Clock, Erica Hunt (Nightboat Books)
• Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, John Murillo (Four Way Books)
• White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia, Kiki Petrosino (Sarabande Books)

2020 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Africaville, Jeffrey Colvin (Amistad)

Nominees:

• Avery Colt is a Snake, a Thief, a Liar, Ron A. Austin (Southeast Missouri State University Press)
• As a River, Sion Dayson (Jaded Ibis Press)

Fiction

Winner:

• A Tall History of Sugar, Curdella Forbes (Akashic Books)

Finalists:

• Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi (Riverhead Books)
• The World Doesn’t Require You, Rion Amilcar Scott (Liveright)

Nominees:

• Speaking of Summer, Kalisha Buckhanon (Counterpoint)
• Patsy, Nicole Dennis-Benn (Liveright)
• The Revisioners, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (Counterpoint)

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Solitary: My Story of Transformation and Hope, Albert Woodfox (Grove Press)

Finalists:

• Think Black: A Memoir, Clyde Ford (Amistad)
• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals, Saidiya Hartman (W. W. Norton & Company)

Nominees:

• Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, Ben Crump (Amistad)
• We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood, Dani McClain (Bold Type Books)
• What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays, Damon Young (Ecco)

Poetry

Winner:

• Exiles of Eden, Ladan Osman (Coffee House Press)

Finalists:

• & More Black, t’ai freedom ford (Augury Books)
• Syncope, Asiya Wadud (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Nominees:

• Night Angler (American Poets Continuum), Geffrey Davis (BOA Editions, LTD)
• 1919, Eve L. Ewing (Haymarket Books)
• Library of Small Catastrophes, Alison Rollins (Copper Canyon Press)

2019 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner:

• Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (37Ink/Atria)

Finalists:

• A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press)
• She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore (Graywolf Press)

Nominees:

• Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner)
• Brother, David Chariandy (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• Washington Black, Esi Edugyan (Alfred A. Knopf)

Nonfiction

Winner:

• May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem by Imani Perry (The University of North Carolina Press)

Finalists:

• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, Brittney Cooper (St. Martin’s Press)
• Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster, Stephen L. Carter (Henry Holt and Company)

Nominees:

• Tigerland: 1968-1969 A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing, Wil Haygood (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon (Scribner)
• The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart (Oxford University Press)

Poetry

Winner:

• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books)

Finalists:

• Mend, Kwoya Fagin Maples (University Press of Kentucky)
• Crosslight for Youngbird, Asiya Wadud (Nightboat Books)

Nominees:

• Approaching the Fields, Chanda Feldman (Louisiana State University Press)
• DiVida, Monica A. Hand (Alice James Books)
• Pardon My Heart, Marcus Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)

2018 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard

Nominees:

• What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Fiction

Winner:

• Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou

Finalists:

• The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees:

• What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
• The Tragedy of Brady Sims by Ernest J. Gaines
• Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani

Nonfiction

Winner:

• The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits by Tiya Miles

Finalists:

• Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education by Noliwe Rooks
• The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

Nominees:

• Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. by Danielle Allen
• Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy by Sheryll Cashin
• Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy

Poetry

Winner:

• Semiautomatic by Evie Shockley

Finalists:

• Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey
• Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

Nominees:

• City of Bones by Kwame Dawes
• Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
• In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae

2017 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson

Nominees:

• Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
• Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John

Fiction

Winner:

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Finalists:

• The Loss of All Lost Things by Amina Gautier
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Nominees:

• The Mother by Yvvette Edwards
• The Book of Harlan by Bernice McFadden
• Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross

Finalists:

• The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, And Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
• In The Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe

Nominees:

• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

Poetry

Winner:

• Bestiary by Donika Kelly

Finalists:

• play dead by francine j. harris
• Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams

Nominees:

• Third Voice by Ruth Ellen Kocher
• Rapture by Sjohnna McCray
• The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

2016 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner:

• Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye

Nominees

• The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
• The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

Fiction

Winner:

• Delicious Foods by James Hannaham

Finalists:

• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
• The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips

Nominees:

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
• Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Nonfiction

Winner:

• Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk

Finalists:

• The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
• Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne

Nominees:

• Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill
• Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness by Harriet A. Washington
• The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins

Poetry

Winner:

• Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis

Finalists:

• Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Nominees:

• How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
• It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson
• Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis

2015 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

Finalists

• An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
• Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

Nominees

• The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani
• Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah
• The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed

Nonfiction

Winner

• Not For Everyday Use by Elizabeth Nunez

Finalists

• Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow
• This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb, Jr.

Nominees

• Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen
• Malcolm X at Oxford Union by Saladin Ambar
• Losing Our Way by Bob Herbert

Poetry

Winner

• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Finalists

• Revising the Storm by Geffrey Davis
• King Me by Roger Reeves

Nominees

• We Don't Know Any Gangsters by Brian Gilmore
• Digest by Gregory Pardlo
• The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon by Willie Perdomo

2014 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Finalists

• See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid
• The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson

Nominees

• Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen
• The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
• The Gospel According to Cane by Courttia Newland

Nonfiction

Winner

• Ebony & Ivory by Craig Wilder

Finalists

• Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch
• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees

• Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sheri Booker
• The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom  and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones
• Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau

Poetry

Winner

• Darktown Follies by Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Finalists

• Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey
• The Cineaste: Poems by A. Van Jordan

Nominees

• Silverchest by Carl Phillips
• The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka
• What We Ask of Flesh by Remica L. Bingham

2013 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Nominees

• Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson
• Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden
• The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
• The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
• A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards

Nonfiction

Winner

• The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics by Fredrick Harris

Nominees

• American Lynching by Ashraf H. A. Rushdy
• Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
• Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson
• Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams
• There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe

Poetry

Winner

• The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton

Nominees

• But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
• me and Nina by Monica Hand

2012 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Finalists

• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
• Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Nominees

• Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• You Are Free by Danzy Senna

Nonfiction

Winner

• Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Finalists

• Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
• One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina

Nominees

• My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir by Mark Whitaker
• Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry

Poetry

Winner

• the new black by Evie Shockley

Nominees

• Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay
• Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

2011 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans

Finalists

• Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden
• Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Nominees

• How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories by Tiphanie Yanique
• How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
• Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story

Nonfiction

Winner

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Finalists

• Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation by Rawn James Jr.
• The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 by Lawrence Jackson

Nominees

• Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell
• John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
• Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams

Poetry

Winner

• Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Elizabeth Alexander

Nominees

• Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
• Skin, Inc: Identity Repair Poems by Thomas Sayers Ellis

2010 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Percival Everett

Finalists

• Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Nominees

• Big Machine by Victor Lavalle
• Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
• The Trial of Robert Mugabe by Chielo Zona Eze

Nonfiction

Winner

• Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley

Finalists

• Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus
• Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood

Nominees

• More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
• Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial by James A. Miller
• The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by Gwen Ifill

Poetry

Winners

• Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Rita Dove
• Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems by Haki R. Madhubuti

Nominees

• Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem by Mitchell L. H. Douglas
• Gospel by Samiya Bashir

2009 Winners and finalists

Fiction

Winner

• Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

Finalists

• Holding Pattern: Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen
• Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Nominees

• Blood Colony by Tananarive Due
• Song Yet Sung by James McBride
• Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke

Nonfiction

Winner

• Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid by Frank B. Wilderson

Finalists

• Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings
• The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Nominees

• Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth- Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
• Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power by Marcus Reeves
• The Agitator’s Daughter: A Memoir of Four Generations of One Extraordinary African- American Family by Sheryll Cashin

Poetry

• The Headless Saints by Myronn Hardy
• Please by Jericho Brown
• Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

2008 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• She's Gone by Kwame Dawes

Nominees

• Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard
• Them by Nathan McCall

Fiction

Winner

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Finalists

• Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
• The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Condé

Nominees

• Measuring Time: A Novel by Helon Habila
• The Guyanese Wander by Jan Carew
• The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi

Nonfiction

Winner

• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwige Danticat

Finalists

• Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane A. Diouf
• On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century by Sherrilyn Ifill

Nominees

• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil and the African Slave Trade by Gerald Horne
• The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why by Jabari Asim

Poetry

Winner

• Bouquet of Hungers by Kyle G. Dargan

Nominees

• Conversion by Remica L. Bingham
• Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan

2007 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Nominees

• Get Down: Stories by Asali Solomon
• Unburnable by Marie-Elena John

Fiction

Winner

• All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones

Finalists

• Dominion: A Novel by Calvin Baker
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nominees

• Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin
• Nowhere is a Place by Bernice L. McFadden
• Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Nonfiction

Winner

• Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai

Finalists

• The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora by Louis Chude-Sokei
• The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging by Kym Ragusa

Nominees

• Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley by Christopher John Farley
• BookMarks: Reading in Black and White by Karla F.C. Holloway
• The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America by Walter C. Rucker

Poetry

• Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith
• The Architecture of Language by Quincy Troupe
• Wind in a Box by Terrance Hayes

2006 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas

Nominees

• Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana
• Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

Fiction

Winner

• My Jim: A Novel by Nancy Rawles

Finalists

• Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham
• The Untelling by Tayari Jones

Nominees

• Dancing in the Dark by Caryl Phillips
• Joplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due
• Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate

Nonfiction

Winner

• Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin

Finalists

• Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood by Donald Bogle
• Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists by Lisa E. Farrington

Nominees

• My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry
• Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality by Dwight A. McBride
• Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition by Cheryl A. Wall

Contemporary Fiction

Winner

• The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries by Clyde W. Ford

Nominees

• Love on the Dotted Line by David E. Talbert
• Who Does She Think She is? by Benilde Little

2005 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• GraceLand by Chris Abani

Nominees

• The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips
• The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan

Fiction

Winner

• Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? by Maryse Condé

Finalists

• The Dew Breaker by Edwige Danticat
• The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda

Nominees

• American Desert by Percival Everett
• Links by Nuruddin Farah
• The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley

Nonfiction

Winner

• Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

Finalists

• A Continent for the Taking by Howard French
• The End of Blackness by Debra J. Dickerson

Nominees

• Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge by Ellis Cose
• The Black Interior by Elizabeth Alexander
• The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream by Sheryll Cashin

Contemporary Fiction

• A Woman's Worth by Tracy Price-Thompson
• Bling by Erica Kennedy
• Shifting Through Neutral by Bridgett M. Davis

2004 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Finalist

• A Place Between Stations by Stephanie Allen
• Knee-Deep in Wonder by April Reynolds

Nominee

• Daughter by Asha Bandele
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
• Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks

Fiction

Winner

• Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson

Finalists

• A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
• The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke

Nominees

• Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase-Riboud
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

Nonfiction

Winner

• In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Wil Haygood

Finalists

• Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity by E. Patrick Johnson
• Mandela, Mobutu and Me by Lynne Duke

Nominees

• Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful by Susan Fales-Hill
• Somebody’s Someone by Regina Louise
• Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

2003 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

Finalists

• A Little Piece Of Sky by Nicole Bailey-Williams
• Fifth Born by Zelda Lockhart

Nominees

• Gigantic by Marc Nesbitt
• River Woman by Donna Hemans
• Song of the Water Saints by Nelly Rosario

Fiction

Winner

• The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda

Finalists

• Douglass’ Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• The Ecstatic by Victor Lavalle

Nominees

• Discretion by Elizabeth Nunez
• Water Street by Crystal Wilkinson
• Without a Name and Under the Tongue by Yvonne Vera

Nonfiction

Winner

• Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies by Elizabeth McHenry

Finalists

• Passed On: African American Mourning Stories by Karla FC Holloway
• The Herndons: An Atlanta Family by Carole Merritt

Nominees

• American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America by Leon E. Wynter
• Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius by Lawrence Jackson

2002 Winners and finalists

Debut Fiction

Winner

• Gabriel’s Story by David Anthony Durham

Finalists

• Greenwichtown by Joyce Palmer
• The Red Moon by Kuwana Haulsey

Nominees

• Breathing Room by Patricia Elam
• Break Any Woman Down by Dana Johnson
• The Dying Ground by Nichelle D. Tramble

Fiction

Winner

• Erasure by Percival Everett

Finalists

• Bombingham by Anthony Grooms
• October Suite by Maxine Clair

Nominees

• Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
• He Sleeps by Reginald McKnight
• The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden

Nonfiction

Winner

• In the Shadow of a Saint:  A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy by Ken Wiwa

Finalists

• On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A’Lelia Bundles
• The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 by Paul Robeson Jr.

Nominees

• Impossible Witnesses: Truths, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony by Dwight McBride
• Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story by Michael Datcher
• Salvation: Black People and Love by bell hooks

External links

• Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, official website