National Book Critics Circle select 'Americanah,' 'Five Days at Memorial' as winners
Stories about love, race, and natural disaster dominated the scene at the National Book Critics Circle awards Thursday in a night of surprises for the esteemed organization鈥檚 annual ceremony.
鈥�Americanah,鈥� the story of love interrupted when a young Nigerian woman immigrates to the US for college, won the prize for fiction, beating out Donna Tartt鈥檚 popular novel, 鈥�The Goldfinch,鈥� as well as three other finalists, including Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being".
鈥淔ive Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital,鈥� Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink鈥檚 account about the patients and families who took shelter at New Orleans鈥� Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina, won for nonfiction. (See Books Editor Marjorie Kehe鈥檚 interview with Fink here.) Other nonfiction nominees included George Packer for "The Unwinding" and David Finkel for "Thank You for Your Service."
For autobiography, 鈥淔arewell, Fred Voodoo,鈥� took the prize, beating out other nominees including Jesmyn Ward for "Men We Reaped," Sonali Deraniyagala for聽 "Wave," Aleksandar Hemon for "The Book of My Lives," and聽 Rebecca Solnit for "The Faraway Nearby." "Voodoo" is an account of Los Angeles author Amy Wilentz鈥檚 journeys to Haiti covering the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.
For biography, Leo Damrosch won for 鈥�Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World". Other nominees in the biography category included Scott Anderson for "Lawrence in Arabia" and John Eliot Gardiner for "Bach."
Italian scholar Franco Moretti's 鈥淒istant Reading鈥� won the criticism award and Frank Bidart's 鈥淢etaphysical Dog鈥� won the poetry prize.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Adichie鈥檚 win for 鈥淎mericanah." The author is no stranger to accolades, however. Her first novel, 鈥淧urple Hibiscus,鈥� was longlisted for a Man Booker prize; her second, 鈥淗alf of a Yellow Sun,鈥� won the UK鈥檚 Orange Prize; and in 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation 鈥済enius鈥� grant.
Her NBCC award-winning novel 鈥淎mericanah鈥� tells the story of a Nigerian blogger who returns to her home country after studying in America to meet her childhood sweetheart. But it is as much a tale about race as it is about love. In the book, a fictional African-American writer in New York complains, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 write an honest novel about race in this country.鈥� As reviewer Steven G. Kellman wrote in the Barnes & Noble review of the novel, 鈥淎mericanah is an attempt to do just that, with trenchant observations about social distinctions in not just one country, the United States, but Britain and Nigeria as well.鈥�
In an interview with the last year, Adichie said the book drew on her own experiences living as an African among Americans.
鈥淚 feel as though being African, I can laugh at certain things that maybe if I were African American I wouldn't,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don't know race in the way an African American knows race鈥�. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see something about your own reality that you don't.鈥�
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
