The finalists in six categories for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Awards and the John Leonard Prize for First Book were announced last night and can be seen here. Winners will be named on March 23 during a ceremony at the New School in New York City.
This year marks the introduction of two new prizes. The NBCC Service Award, honoring extraordinary and longstanding service to the organization, went to past NBCC president Barbara Hoffert. Finalists were also unveiled for the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, celebrating the artistic merit of literature in translation in any genre.
"The six books selected by members of the National Book Critics Circle represent an impressive range of genres and subjects, aesthetic styles and languages," said committee chair Tara Merrigan. "We are delighted to be able to highlight such excellent work made available in English by the skill and persistence of six translators."
In addition, Joy Harjo is receiving the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Jennifer Wilson has won the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and the winner of the Toni Morrison Achievement Award, recognizing "institutions that have made lasting and meaningful contributions to book culture," is City Lights Books, San Francisco, Calif.
Sandrof prize committee chair Jacob M. Appel commented: "Among the illustrious prior winners of the Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award are individuals whose own literary works have transformed book culture and also those whose activism and service on behalf of other writers has proven to be of remarkable influence. As a three-term United States Poet Laureate and a leading voice for Native American communities on and off the pages, Harjo embodies both of these legacies. Drawing upon the traditions of the Muscogee Nation and the vast landscape of her unbounded imagination, Harjo speaks in a distinctive, indelible language of myth and music. She stands not only as a literary envoy for indigenous peoples everywhere, but also as the unrivaled ambassador of American poetry."
Balakian prize committee chair Colette Bancroft said: "In graceful, well-crafted prose enriched by deep understanding of her subject, Jennifer Wilson turns a review of a new translation of an unfinished novel by Alexander Pushkin, Peter the Great's African, into a sophisticated exploration of how the great Russian poet's personal heritage as the great-grandson of a Black African informed his art and shaped his understanding of what it meant to be Russian."
Appel, who also chaired the Morrison prize committee, observed: "The impact of City Lights on American literature has been revolutionary, which may be the highest compliment one can bestow upon an enterprise whose goal since its inception has been to transform both the realm of literature and society beyond. Since its founding in the early 1950s by Peter D. Martin and Lawrence Ferlinghetti--the latter himself a former Sandrof Award honoree--City Lights has introduced American audiences to audacious new voices, inviting us to lunch with Frank O'Hara, wander with Marie Ponsot and howl with Allen Ginsberg. Far more than a press or a bookshop, City Lights shines as a beacon for innovation and justice and as a guiding flare for readers and writers across the globe who dream of a better world."