It is not uncommon in modern times for African-American women to win major literary awards but it is rare, if not unprecedented, for two such women to win the same major award in separate categories in the same year. That is precisely what happened on November 16, 2011, when Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for fiction and Nikky Finney accepted the award for poetry.
"We begin with history”"
Finney, a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Kentucky, won the award for Head Off & Split, her fourth volume of poetry. Her previous titles include: The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). She is also author of the short story collection, Heartwood (1998). Upon accepting her National Book Award, Finney may have summed up just how triumphant the events of the evening turned out to be when she noted the following at the beginning her speech:
“We begin with history. The slave codes of South Carolina, 1739. A fine of $100 and six months in prison will be imposed for anyone found teaching a slave to read or write. And death is the penalty for circulating any incendiary literature…”
The contrast of that image from less than three centuries ago with Finney and Ward accepting their honors in 2011 places both the opportunities and the failures currently before African Americans in a profound context of historical incongruence.
The Novelist and the Hurricane
Jesmyn Ward, a native of DeLisle Missippi and a Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi, accepted her prize in fiction for Salvage the Bones. Frequently praised for its fusion of contemporary history, myth, autobiography, and popular culture, the novel tells the story of a pregnant teenager confronted by the approaching wrath that became hurricane Katrina.
Ward’s s first novel, Where the Line Bleeds (2008), was an ESSENCE Magazine Book Club selection. She is currently at work on a memoir that examines the deaths of several black men in the region where she grew up.
In one interview, with Elizabeth Hoover of the Paris Review Daily, the author discussed the event that inspired Salvage Bones:
“My family and I survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005; we left my grandmother’s flooding house, were refused shelter by a white family, and took refuge in trucks in an open field during a category five hurricane. I saw an entire town demolished, people fighting over water, breaking open caskets searching for something that could help them survive.”
Whereas some contemporary authors might consider distancing themselves both physically and emotionally from such a challenging environment, Ward maintains a very palpable connection with it. As she told Boris Kachka of New York Magazine, remaining connected has allowed her to observe and report more precisely on issues many Americans prefer to believe are no longer real or relevant:
"It really bothers me when people say we live in a post-racial America. Growing up, I encountered racism all the time, and not covert or institutional racism, but in-your-face, 'I'm-gonna-call-you-a-nigger' racism. There was nothing post-racial about my experience, and there still isn't."
NEXT: Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No. 6 Sonny Rollins
by Aberjhani, National African American Art Examiner
author of Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World
and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Pages from an Author's 2011 Journal
- Introduction to Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011
- Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No.10 Samuel L. Jackson’s $7 Billion Triumph
- Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No. 9 Belafonte’s New Song
- Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No 8 Execution in Georgia
- Looking at the World Through Michael Jackson’s Left Eye
- The Approaching 100thAnniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
- What Osama Bin Laden’s Death Indicates about Barack Obama’s Leadership
- Literary Legacies of Savannah Georgia
- Events, Book Highlight Flannery O’Connor Legacy
Comments