New York — On Thursday, the National Book Critics Circle awarded honorary awards to Judy Blume and the American Library Association, as well as fiction to Lorrie Moore. Moore, known for her short stories, won the fiction prize for her novel “I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home.”
According to committee chair David Varno, the novel is a poignant and amusing ghost story about a guy who contemplates what it means to be human in a world of ‘voluntary insanity.’ The landmark American author's achievement is unforgettable.”
Blume won the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. The committee noted her works "Are You There God?" It's Me, Margaret has “inspired generations of young readers by tackling the emotional turbulence of girlhood and adolescence with authenticity, candor and courage.”
She was also lauded as “a relentless opponent of censorship and an iconic champion of literary freedom.”
Toni Morrison Achievement Awards acknowledge institutions for their contributions to book culture, including the American Library Association. The committee noted the group's “longstanding commitment to equity, including its 20th century campaigns against library segregation and for LGBT+ literature, and its perennial stance as a bulwark against those regressive and illiberal supporters of book bans.
Blume, who accepted her prize from her Key West bookstore, hailed the ALA for “their tireless work in protecting our intellectual freedoms.” The New School in New York presented the honors on Thursday night.
Safiya Sinclair, poet, won the autobiography prize for her memoir “How to Say Babylon,” on her Jamaican background and strict Rastafarian upbringing. “Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage,” by Jonny Steinberg, about Nelson and Winnie Mandela, earned the biography award.
South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon won for “Phantom Pain Wings.” Maureen Freely won the Translation Award for her translation of Tezer Özlü's "Cold Nights of Childhood" from Turkish. Tahir Hamut Izgil won the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book for “Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: : A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide.”
Tina Post earned the critique prize for “Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression,” while Roxanna Asgarian won the nonfiction prize for “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America.”
Blume and the library association received honorary awards, as did Washington Post critic Becca Rothfield and NPR's “All Things Considered” host Marion Winik for literary service. In 1974, hundreds of reviewers and editors from across the country formed the book critics circle.
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