The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty (Knopf) won the National Book Award for fiction at the 73rd annual awards ceremony—resuming an in-person event for the first time since 2019. Gunty, who didn’t prepare a speech, thanked her fellow nominees for “putting their work into the world.” She referenced something Sharon Olds had said at an event the previous day, “How we’ve been preparing to put forth actions for the good, and that’s why we don’t have to be afraid. And when I think about everyone else on this list, that’s what each of those books accomplished, as different as they may be. They attended to those who are structurally neglected and humanize experiences that are not visible normally.”
The awards, which were also livestreamed, were hosted by author and James Beard Award-winner Padma Lakshmi. Representatives from the Harper Collins Union handed out buttons and informational fliers near the event location at Cipriani Wall Street, and Lakshmi took the dais wearing a union button prominently displayed on the front of her dress.
Lakshmi addressed the wave of book banning in the country—a topic that hung heavy over the proceedings—saying that assessing books is the job of “librarians, not politicians.” “I don’t want my daughter to be shielded from history,” she continued. “I want her to have access to what was missing from my classrooms. [I want] our kids, the current generation, to learn the truth, and not just the truth that isn’t painful. Looking at the truth of our history, of who we were, who we are now, are the first steps to understanding and reconciling the past sins of our nation. But we can’t learn those lessons if we’re not even allowed to open those books.”
The nonfiction award went to Imani Perry’s, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (Ecco). Perry began by honoring the other shortlisted authors, “every one who wrote with a righteous purpose…stunning books.” In a poetic speech, Perry said that she writes for—among many others—those “who walk the picket lines.” She continued, “We may write in solitude but we labor in solidarity.”
John Keene’s Punks: New & Selected Poems (The Song Cave) won the poetry award. He dedicated the award to his ancestors and the writers who came before him, including Black, gay, queer, and trans writers, “especially those who we lost to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. Let’s return to their words and the words of so many vital writers and artists whose words we may have forgotten.” Keene also expressed support for “workers in the publishing industry and every industry.”
The translated literature award went to Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead). “Words can be very tricky, even harmful, and we need to be very careful about this,” Schweblin said. “But then someone calls you from back home and says, you’re going to have to dress up tonight… Keep warm, have fun.” McDowell said that most people think words come easy to writers, but that writers are people who “distrust words, question them, demand more from them.”
Sabaa Tahir’s All My Rage (Razorbill) took home the prize for young people’s literature (and is excerpted in our Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer sampler). Tahir noted that she is the first Muslim and Pakistani American woman to win the award. She finished her speech by thanking her readers, who often tell her that her books make them feel less alone. “You make me feel less alone,” she said. “I have been a misfit and an outcast and lonely and lost and when I write for you I am none of those things.”
Overall, as noted individually, Penguin Random House imprint’s won three of the five prizes. Lifetime achievement awards were presented at the beginning of the ceremony. The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the Literary Community went to executive director of the American Library Association Tracie D. Hall, presented by Ibram X. Kendi—also sporting a Harper union button. Hall described going to the library with her grandmother, who had low literacy, and her own work in promoting information access. “Let history show of this period that librarians and the writers whose works they protect from being removed or erased were on the frontlines in upholding our democracy,” she continued. She finished, “Free people read freely.”
Neil Gaiman presented the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Art Spiegelman. Gaiman, who introduced himself as a friend of Spiegelman’s, described reading an early version of Maus as a three-page comic and realizing that Spiegelman was a genius. “He’s a mensch,” Gaiman joked, “but he’s a genius.” Spiegelman said that he was “terrified of putting together a speech for this august crowd.” Referring to accepting an award for American letters, he said “What about the pictures?”
In a speech both moving and comedic, he expressed pleasure that comics were being included among the prestigious awards. “If this is a lifetime achievement award it must include my decades working for Topps bubble gum,” he said. He discussed the history of comics being banned and how it ties to the censoring of Maus and other graphic novels, and hopes that Maus remains a cautionary tale, even if the conversation around such atrocities against marginalized communities has been “never again and again and again.”