Nonfiction
“We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America,” by Roxanna Asgarian
Asgarian, a journalist who has written about legal issues for The Texas Tribune, investigates a shocking tragedy that occurred in 2018, when an S.U.V. plunged off a cliff along a coastal highway, killing a family of eight. She recounts the horrifying details of what investigators concluded was not an accident, but a murder-suicide, and also reveals the ways in which systemic failures in the foster care system may have contributed to the children’s deaths.
Poetry
“Phantom Pain Wings” by Kim Hyesoon
Translated from Korean by Don Mee Choi, this poetry collection “reads like a variety of horror — haunted, grotesque, futureless,” Elisa Gabbert wrote in a review in The Times.
The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize
“Cold Nights of Childhood” by Tezer Özlü, translated by Maureen Freely
The translation prize, awarded jointly to authors and translators, was given to a novel by Özlü, a Turkish writer who died in 1986. Originally published in 1980 and released in English in the United States last year by Transit Books, the narrative follows a woman who is battling mental illness and exploring her sexuality. The prize is named for Barrios, a poet, playwright and critic who died in 2021.
John Leonard Prize
“Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide” by Tahir Hamut Izgil, translated by Joshua L. Freeman
In this memoir, which won the prize for best debut book, Izgil, a poet, recounts the persecution and terror he faced as a member of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority when he was living in Urumqi, a city in China’s western Xinjiang region. “This is in effect a psychological thriller, although the narrative unfolds like a classic horror movie as relative normalcy dissolves into a nightmare,” Barbara Demick wrote in a review in The Times. The prize is named for Leonard, a literary critic and co-founder of the critics organization who died in 2008.
Criticism
“Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression” by Tina Post
Post, an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago, explores purposeful withholding as a tool used by makers of Black culture.
