Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa has been named the recipient of the 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, a prestigious honor recognizing his influential body of work and enduring contribution to American literature.
Komunyakaa, 77, is celebrated for his powerful exploration of race, music, and war, particularly in acclaimed collections such as Neon Vernacular. His poetry, known for its lyrical intensity and unflinching examination of personal and cultural history, has shaped contemporary verse for decades.
“Komunyakaa has shaped contemporary poetry with a voice that is both unflinching and deeply evocative,” the Cleveland Foundation said in a statement Thursday, announcing this year’s Anisfield-Wolf winners.
The awards, presented annually by the Cleveland Foundation since 1935, honor works of literature that confront racism and celebrate cultural diversity. The foundation was established by poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf, and the awards remain among the oldest and most respected of their kind.
Alongside Komunyakaa, other 2024 honorees include Danzy Senna, who won the fiction award for Colored Television, a sharp satire following an author’s attempt to revive a failed novel through a television adaptation.
The nonfiction prize was awarded to John Swanson Jacobs for The United States Governed By Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, a historically rich and newly unearthed account of American slavery.
Janie Harrington received the poetry prize for her collection Yard Show, and Tessa Hulls earned recognition in the memoir category for Feeding Ghosts.
The winners will be formally celebrated at a ceremony in September. Past recipients of the Anisfield-Wolf Awards include literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett.
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