Each fall, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize recognizes an outstanding work of both nonfiction and fiction with an award and a $5,000 prize. The 2020 awardees will finally be announced on Friday, November 20th at the Brooklyn Classic–the signature fundraising event of the Brooklyn Eagles.
To pick the winners, a volunteer team of two dozen librarians spend the better part of a year evaluating titles submitted by staff from across the borough. The committee looks for books published after June 1, 2019 that push boundaries, bring light to unheralded stories, or give voice to the silenced. Last year, the committee awarded Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom the Nonfiction Prize for Thick: And Other Essays and Miriam Toews the Fiction and Poetry Prize for Women Talking.
To be nominated to the 2020 BPL Literary Prize shortlist is itself a tremendous accomplishment; the six finalists that remain were winnowed from over a hundred titles initially under consideration. Yet, since it is still anyone's guess who will eventually win the 2020 fiction and nonfiction prizes, Off the Shelf snuck into (*not really*) the committee's final deliberations to provide this fly-on-the-wall perspective.
NONFICTION CATEGORY
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir written by Saeed Jones
Published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019. An award-winning poet's coming-of-age memoir tells the intimate story of an identity shaped by race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief.
Check the Catalog"Saeed Jones is a fantastic writer who gives us scenes of raw, emotional detail….gut-wrenching and poignant and sad….Contains scenes so vivid, you feel as though you are feeling and living within its sentences."
The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier written by Ian Urbina
Published by Knopf (Penguin Random House) in August 2019. Through immersive reporting that reads like an adventure story, a journalist reveals how today's oceans have become a haven for crime and exploitation.
Check the Catalog"As a feat of journalism, The Outlaw Ocean is superior, bearing witness to the lawlessness of the ocean. It is a harrowing and exciting read."
Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code written by Ruha Benjamin
Published by Polity in July 2019. Our cutting-edge apps and algorithms are built with biases that reinforce white supremacy and deepen social inequity, a sociologist argues in an eye-opening account of how the tech industry operates.
Check the Catalog"So critical in this turbulent year…Just so important and relevant for right now…Race After Technology is immediately useful and actionable right now…There are a lot of moments where you say, 'okay, now that I know this, I can make different choices.'”
FICTION & POETRY CATEGORY
The Deep written by Rivers Solomon (with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes)
Published by Gallery/Saga Press (Simon & Schuster) in November 2019. The descendants of Africans thrown overboard from slave ships have built their own underwater society, in this story inspired by the song "The Deep" from Daveed Digg's rap group clipping.
Check the Catalog"It takes a period of our history that is unspeakable and makes of it something of power and beauty…the voice is very personal and riveting. It captures people, no matter the level at which they want to read it."
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous written by Ocean Vuong
published by Penguin in June 2019. A young writer composes a confessional letter to his Vietnamese mother, who cannot read, to name the unspoken traumas his immigrant family brought to their American home.
Check the Catalog"Vuong brings such delicate beauty to these raw situations. The poetry that he gave to these characters is just incredible…looking at the trauma you’ve faced, and the trauma those around you have faced and still moving forward, is really beautiful….seeing the intersections of where we learn to hate ourselves and how society allows those of us on the margins to do that, but then finding love and tenderness in that space was amazing."
This is How You Lose The Time War written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
published by Gallery/Saga Press (Simon & Schuster) in July 2019. Two time travelers, on opposing sides in an endless conflict, forge a connection through the letters they leave behind for each other.
Check the Catalog"It asks big questions, and it asks them in ways that are subtle. I got swept up in the love story, but when I went and reread it I saw that it was asking big questions about how we see the world and what we value."
So, now that you've seen how the BPL Literary Prize sausage is made in committee, let us know who you think will actually take home the prize this year. Make your voice heard in the comments below. And don't forget to tune back in on November 20th for this year's award winners!
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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