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Book award honors writers who combat racism, promote diversity

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Poet Saeed Jones
Poet Saeed Jones with his acceptance speech for “Alive At The End of the World,” his second collection that contains 46 poems.
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Lan Samantha Chang
Lan Samantha Chang giving her acceptance speech for “The Family Chao,” a fictional story of patricide.
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Historian and Scholar Matthew F. Delmont
Historian and Scholar Matthew F. Delmont with his acceptance speech for his nonfiction novel “Half American.”
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Pulitzer prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks
Pulitzer prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks gives her acceptance speech for her fiction story “Horse.”
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Lifetime Achievement award winner Charlayne Hunter Gault
Lifetime Achievement award winner Charlayne Hunter Gault is an award-winning journalist, author and a former foreign correspondent for NPR, CNN, and PBS. Hunter-Gault was one of the first African Americans to attend the University of Georgia and is credited for her civil rights activism.
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People arriving for the 88th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 28, 2023.
People arriving for the 88th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, at the Maltz Performing Arts Center, Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 28, 2023.
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By KOYA BALL - posted December 8, 2023

The 88th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards honored five authors in fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and celebrated lifetime achievements. The awards ceremony was held at the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Sept. 28.

Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards in 1935 in honor of her father John Anisfiled and husband Eugene Wolf. She created the awards to reflect on her family's passion for social justice.

Wolf was proactive with the Cleveland Public Library for 20 years. She worked to make sure the library had books from all cultures. She was also a published poet and civic activist who used her work as a way to explore racial prejudice and celebrate human diversity. 

The 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards honored the following artists:

  • Fiction - Horse by Geraldine Brooks

  • Fiction - The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

  • Poetry - Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones

  • Nonfiction - Half American by Matthew F. Delmont

  • Lifetime Achievement - Charlayne Hunter-Gault

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