NEW YORK 鈥� Maggie O'Farrell's 鈥淗amnet,鈥� an imagined take on the death of Shakespeare's son from the bubonic plague, has won the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction.
鈥淗amnet,鈥� an unfortunately well timed story for the current pandemic, explores the impact of the boy's illness and death on his family. He was Shakespeare's only son, and scholars have long speculated about his influence 鈥� if any 鈥� on 鈥淗amlet,鈥� which Shakespeare worked on in the years following Hamnet's death.
Tom Zoellner鈥檚 鈥淚sland on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire鈥� won for nonfiction, and Amy Stanley's 鈥淪tranger in the Shogun鈥檚 City: A Japanese Woman and Her World鈥� was the winner in biography.
The autobiography award went to Cathy Park Hong for 鈥淢inor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning."
Other winners announced during Thursday night's virtual ceremony included francine j. harris' 鈥淗ere Is the Sweet Hand鈥� for poetry and Nicole Fleetwood's 鈥淢arking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration鈥� for criticism. Raven Leilani received the John Leonard Prize for best first book for her novel 鈥淟uster.鈥�
Career achievement awards were presented to New Republic writer Jo Livingstone for 鈥渆xcellence in reviewing鈥� and to the Feminist Press for its long history of championing women's equality, publishing authors ranging from Grace Paley to Anita Hill to Pussy Riot.
The book critics circle was founded in 1974 and has hundreds of members around the country. This year's awards are the first since the departure of numerous NBCC board members last summer in the wake of a dispute over the organization's response to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matters protests. The leadership brought in several new members and convinced some who had resigned to stay on, resulting, according to the critics circle, in 鈥渢he most diverse board in NBCC history and one of the most experienced.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
