{"id":257230,"date":"2023-11-16T20:05:30","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T01:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=257230"},"modified":"2024-01-02T14:58:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T19:58:25","slug":"at-the-2023-national-book-awards-writers-advocate-for-a-ceasefire-and-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/at-the-2023-national-book-awards-writers-advocate-for-a-ceasefire-and-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"At the National Book Awards, Writers Advocate for a Ceasefire and Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The National Book Awards took place on November 15th at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. A day before the biggest night in books, two sponsors\u2014Book of the Month and Zibby Books\u2014announced they were not attending because of \u201cpolitical speeches,\u201d following rumors that the nominees were planning to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Zibby Owens, founder of Zibby Media and daughter of Blackstone billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, rescinded her donation, citing \u201ca pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli agenda\u201d in her newsletter (which was full of oxymoronic gems like \u201cI don\u2019t support censorship\u201d while using her money to do just that). As of today, more than 11,200 Gazan have died<\/a> as a result of bombardment by Israeli forces, while millions more have been displaced without access to electricity, medical aid, and food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day before, two sponsors announced they were not attending because of ‘political speeches.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the topics dominating the National Books Awards were censorship, free speech, and book bans (all political issues). But book bans have not gone away, instead the number of challenged books have surged in recent months<\/a>. This year, Palestine and Israel were the elephants in the room\u2014only alluded to obliquely by most until the final moments of the evening\u2014while the focus remained on censorship and free speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LeVar Burton\u2014who stepped in as the host of the ceremony after Drew Barrymore was disinvited for crossing the WGA picket line\u2014started the evening by asking if there were any Moms for Liberty in the house, a right-wing group at the forefront of trying to ban books containing themes of sexuality and race from libraries and schools. The Reading Rainbow<\/em> host warned the audience that books are being attacked because they\u2019re so powerful, saying: \u201cThe idea of freedom feels especially fraught in this global political moment\u2026 We are fighting for control of truth and how we interpret truth in this country. Books are being banned, words are being silenced, writers are under attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The patron saint of books: Oprah<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The special guest of the night was Oprah Winfrey, who was being honored for tremendous advocacy of authors and reading. In an emotional and rousing speech, she told the audience about the first time she read a book with a Black protagonist at age 15\u2014Maya Angelou\u2019s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/em>: \u201cThat book gave a voice to my silences, my secrets. It gave words to my pain and my confusion of being raped at 9 years old. Until then, I didn\u2019t know that there was a language, that were words for what had happened to me, or that any other human being on earth had experienced it. That\u2019s the power of books\u2026 To ban books is to cut us off from one another, in a soulless echo chamber. Let us let everyone choose for themselves what they want to read. That is called freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a night when the special guest was the OG of the celebrity book clubs, it\u2019s only fitting that Emma Roberts (Belletrist) and Kaia Gerber (Kaia Gerber’s Book Club) were also in attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Poets Jericho Brown and Rita Dove<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Next, two lifetime achievements awards were presented: the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to poet Rita Dove, and the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community to bookseller Paul Yamazaki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Jericho Brown, reading Rita Dove gave him the sense of possibility of becoming a poet: \u201cPossibility is what gives us the nerve to write, to make something out of our scribbles. All us here have been told that writing is not a sustainable living, yet we are here proving the naysayers wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her speech, Dove, a Pulitzer-Prize winner, said: “What a poet manages to ink onto a page (or put into a computer’s memory, as it were) is just a silhouette, a shadow of that essential enigma that we call life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an introduction by fellow bookseller Mitchell Kaplan, Yamazaki was heralded as \u201ca catalyst of change.” <\/strong>Kaplan reminisced that, <\/strong>“His championing of new and diverse voices and small independent presses, set an example for booksellers everywhere. He showed that these books would find readers when they were made available.\u201d Yamazaki came to City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco over 50 years ago after being released from a 6-month prison sentence for activism and protesting. We\u2019ve said it before and we\u2019ll say it again: booksellers are the unsung heroes of the literary world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book bans have not gone away, instead the number of challenged books have surged in recent months.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then it was time for the awards portion of the evening. The National Book Awards ceremony includes five categories: fiction, nonfiction, young people\u2019s literature, and translated literature. Winners, picked by a jury of writers, translators, and poets, are awarded $100,000. Finalists included a children\u2019s book about the Ukrainian famine, a memoir about the relationship between a Palestinian father and son, a short story collection centering Black Muslims lives in America, a novel about the clash between Sami rainherders and Nordic settlers, a Native American history of the United States, tactile poetry by a DeafBlind poet, and a Dutch Suriname queer classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first announcement of the night was for young people\u2019s literature. The winner: A First Time for Everything<\/em> by Dan Santat, a tender graphic novel about a 13-year-old on a school trip in Europe. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Author St\u00eanio Gardel and translator Bruna Dantas Lobato, winners of the award for translated literature<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The winners for translated literature were Brazilians St\u00eanio Gardel and Bruna Dantas Lobato for the novel The Words That Remain<\/em>. Through tears, Gardel, the author, expressed how growing up as a gay boy in the hinterlands of Brazil, it was impossible for him to dream of such an honor. \u201cBeing here as a gay man, receiving an award for a novel about a gay man on a journey to self acceptance, I wanted to say to everyone whoever felt wrong about themselves that your heart and your desire are true, you are just as deserving as anyone else of having a fulfilling life and accomplishing impossible dreams.\u201d Lobat, the translator, thanked the publisher, New Vessel Press, \u201cfor putting my name on the cover of the book, where it belongs. #NameTheTranslator. We are not mysterious fairies working in the dark. It is so rare to see the Brazil I know in translation. Here\u2019s to reading the world with curiosity and empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n