Here are the finalists for the 2020-21 L.A. Times Book Prize.
Today the Los Angeles Times announced the finalists for its 2020-21 Book Prize, which recognizes and honors outstanding literary work published in the last year.
The 55 finalists were selected across 11 categories—Biography, Current Interest, Fiction, Graphic Novels/Comics, History, Mystery/Thriller, Poetry, Science & Technology, First Fiction, Science & Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, and Young Adult Literature—and the winners will be announced in a live-streamed virtual ceremony on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on April 16, the day before the 26th Los Angeles Times Festival of Books kicks off its second virtual event during the ongoing pandemic.
Congrats to all!
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2020-21 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists
BIOGRAPHY
Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
Blake Gopnik, Warhol
David Michaelis, Eleanor
William Souder, Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck
CURRENT INTEREST
Brittany K. Barnett, A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans
Christine Montross, Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration
Jacob Soboroff, Separated: Inside An American Tragedy
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
FICTION
Peter Cameron, What Happens at Night
David Diop (trans., Anna Moschovakis), At Night All Blood is Black
Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji
Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Likes
GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMICS
Yeon-sik Hong (trans., Janet Hong), Umma’s Table
Kaito, Blue Flag (Vol. 1-4)
Ben Passmore, Sports Is Hell
Bishakh Som, Apsara Engine
Jim Terry, Come Home, Indio: A Memoir
HISTORY
Alice L. Baumgartner, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War
Adam Goodman, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants
Walter Johnson, The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States
Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
MYSTERY/THRILLER
Christopher Bollen, A Beautiful Crime
S.A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland
Jennifer Hillier, Little Secrets: A Novel
Rachel Howzell Hall, And Now She’s Gone
Ivy Pochoda, These Women: A Novel
POETRY
Victoria Chang, Obit
Anthony Cody, Borderland Apocrypha
Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Age of Phillis
Nikky Finney, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems and Artifacts
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
Ainissa Ramirez, The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another
Sara Seager, The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
Patrik Svensson, The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
THE ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION
Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain
Maisy Card, These Ghosts Are Family: A Novel
Meng Jin, Little Gods
Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Shruti Swamy, A House is a Body: Stories
THE RAY BRADBURY PRIZE FOR SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND SPECULATIVE FICTION
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
Megan Giddings, Lakewood: A Novel
Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians
N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became: A Novel
Aoko Matsuda (trans., Polly Barton), Where the Wild Ladies Are
YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
Dean Atta, The Black Flamingo
Tracy Deonn, Legendborn
Yusef Salaam and Ibi Zoboi, Punching the Air
Karen Schneemann and Lily Williams, Go With the Flow
Allan Wolf, The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep: Voices From the Donner Party
[h/t L.A. Times]
