Writing + finishing | Gong Zhaohua
Why the American Association of Book Critics Awards deserve attention
The American Book Critics Association Award is far less famous than the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Booker Prize in The United Kingdom, and the Pulitzer Prize, but in the literary world, the Book Critics Association Award has always been very unique in its vision of selecting classic works. The prize was created in 1976 and the results are announced every March.
The Book Critics Association Awards are divided into 6 categories, including fiction, nonfiction, biography, poetry, criticism and autobiographical memoirs, and are nominated for all books published in English in the past year. Since its inception, the book critics' association awards have screened award-winning books such as Bolaño's 2666, Sebald's Austerlitz, Updike's Rabbit Rich and Rabbit Rest, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Cormac McCarthy's Horse of the World, mcEwan's Atonement, and so on. In terms of criticism, Susan Sontag, Brodsky, Helen Wendler, and Borges have also won the award. These award-winning works are either masterpieces of writers or books that have been ignored by classic writers. Both the broad horizons and the swiftness with which to capture current published works have greatly compensated for the shortcomings of other literary awards.
2020 Annual Finalists
This year, the jury announced the shortlist for six awards, including British novelist Martin Amis's new work The Inside Story, Heather Clark's Biography of Plath, and others.
In addition to the regular awards, since 2014, in honor of john Leonard, a prominent book critic who died and a founding member of the Book Critics Association Award, the committee has specially established the "First Book" Award (also known as the John Leonard Award) to reward authors who published their first book in 6 categories. In this year's shortlist, the list of "First Books" also includes three finalists for last year's Booker Prize, including the final winner "Shuggie Bain".
Attached: Complete shortlist
Autobiography:
Small Emotions: Reflections on Asian Americans, Kang Pu "It's Important: Diana Rose's Notes," "The Black Girl, and Drug Addiction," by Sierra Lawson "Puppet Girl" Riva Lehrer Dragons, Giants, Women, Veyuto Moore Home Baking: My Mother, Marijuana, and the Stones of San Francisco, Arya Waltz
2020 Shortlist Selected Books (Critical Category) Book Covers.
Criticism:
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Nikkor Fleetwood Strangers, South Valley Seppel Grief: A Report on a Wounded Nation (Mexico), Cristina Rivera Garza Unfinished Business: Notes from a Longtime Heavy Reader, Vivian Gernick Bullshit: A History of American Bento, by Wendy A. Watson
2020 Annual Shortlist Selected Book (Novel) Book Cover.
Fiction:
The Inside Story, Martin Amis "If I Had Two Wings," Randall Kennan Hamnett, Maggie O'Farrell How to Pronounce Knife, souvankham thammavongsa Memorial, Brian Washington
Non-fiction:
Broken Hearts of America: St. Louis and America's Violent History, Walter Johnson Shakespeare in Divided America: His Plays Tell Us About the Past and Future, James Shapiro She Came Naturally: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Live in Her Songs – Sarah Smash Caste: The Root of Our Discontent, Isabelle Wilkerson The Burning Island: The Uprising that Ended Slavery in the British Empire, Tom Zolner
Poetry:
Sweet Hand, By Francine Harris Obituary, Victoria Zhang The Imperial Wine, By Amoud Johnson The Coast, Chris Nilon "Fellow Countrymen", Danez Smith
Biography:
Strangers Under the Shogunate: A Japanese Woman and Her World, Amy Stanley The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, Zachary D. Carter The Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, Heather Clark Resurrection of the Dead: The Life of Malcolm Aix, Les Payne, Tamara Payne Peers: A Story of Art, Women's Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty
John Leonard Award:
Mill town: Remembrance of Remnants, Kyrie Ascensiott The Undocumented American, Carla Villavicencio Gloss, Raven Relani Burning, Meha Majunda "Shugi Bane", Douglas Stewart Real Life, Brandon Taylor How many of these mountains are gold? Pam Zhang
The author | Gong Zhaohua
Edited | Rodong
Proofreading | dangerous
Source: Beijing News