At the National Book Awards on Wednesday evening, 15 of 20 finalists were women and three of the four awards went to women as well. The fiction prize went to Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner) by Jesmyn Ward, who won also won in 2011 for Salvage the Bones. In her speech, Ward said, “You looked at my poor, my black, my southern women, and you saw yourself. I am deeply honored to each and every one of you who looks at my work and sees something in it.” Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (Riverhead) was awarded the nonfiction prize. She opened her […]