Drumroll, please! The 2019 National Book Awards for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature, and translated literature were awarded Wednesday night. For fiction, first-time nominee Susan Choi’s novel about a performance-arts high school in the ’80s, Trust Exercise, took home the prize. Choi was previously a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize with her book American Woman. “This book is collaboration more so than any other book I’ve written,†Choi said in her acceptance speech at the National Book Awards, per Entertainment Weekly. “Given what we’re all facing today, I find it an astonishing privilege what I get to do every day. I get to lead a life centered on books and bring other people into that world.â€
As for the other works, Sarah M. Broom won the nonfiction prize for her debut book, The Yellow House, which details her family’s history in New Orleans. For young people’s literature, Martin W. Sandler’s 1919 the Year That Changed America won out, and Arthur Sze’s Sight Lines earned the poetry prize. The award for translated literature went to László Krasznahorkai’s Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, which was translated from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet. Winners of the National Book Award win a bronze statue and $10,000. It’s what they deserve!