The 2023 fiction prize went to Justin Torres (New York City, New York, 1980) for his second novel, Blackouts. Combining the fictional stories of two men in a psychiatric institution and the real-life 1941 report "Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns" by the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants, the novel deals with queer identity and historical suppression of LGBT culture.
In the video below, the announcement and Torres' acceptance speech:
The 2023 poetry prize went to Craig Santos Perez (Mongmong-Toto-Maite, Guåhan [Guam], 1980) for his seventh collection, from unincorporated territory [åmot] (all lowercase in the original). It is also the fifth in a series, with previous subtitles hacha, saina, guma', and lukao, in which the author uses poetry to analyze and subvert colonialism and its maps, aided in this by an extensive usage of his native Chamorro language.
In the video below, the announcement and Santos Perez' acceptance speech:
On March 16, 1950, publishers, editors, writers, and critics gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City to celebrate the first annual National Book Awards (NBAs). Their aim was to award books of the highest quality written by American authors and published by American publishers, in order to expand the audience of American literature and enhance the cultural value of great writing in America. Assigned on four Award categories (Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature), the prize soon affirmed itself as the most important in the United States.