This event will simultaneously broadcast on the San Francisco Public Library YouTube channel and Zoom. Register here.
Celebrate Northern California's vibrant literary scene on Sunday, July 11, 2021, 2:00 pm Pacific Time, when the 40th annual Northern California Book Awards will recognize the best published works of 2020 by Northern California authors and California literary translators. The winners in each category will be announced at the online awards ceremony.
The NCBAs are presented by Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash, and San Francisco Public Library, with our community partners Mechanics' Institute Library, Women’s National Book Association-San Francisco Chapter, and Pen West.
This year, and from now on, the California Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose will honor works of translation by translators across California. Translation nominees named here include literary translators based all over the Golden State, including North Bay, Oakland, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego areas.
The Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement and Service will be presented to a distinguished member of the Northern Californian literary community; the award carries a $1,000 honorarium. The winning authors will briefly present their nominated books. Nominated books will be available for online purchase during the event. Eligible books are divided into categories: Fiction, General Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, California Translation (Poetry and Prose), and Children's Literature (Younger Readers, Middle Grade, Young Adult). The Fred Cody Award recipient and the Poetry nominees will soon be announced in this space.
Northern California reviewers and editors, members of Northern California Book Reviewers, select the awards. All of the nominated books, the NCBR Recommended Reading List of Books Published in 2020, will be acknowledged and celebrated at the ceremony.
City Lights Books will host the NCBA online bookstore featuring the nominated books on Bookshop.org.
FRED CODY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT & SERVICE
Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2015-2017; Teacher and Activist
Every Day We Get More Illegal, City Lights Books, 2020
NCBR GROUNDBREAKER AWARD
Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco Poet Laureate, 2021; Teacher and Activist
POETRY
Indigo, Ellen Bass, Copper Canyon Press
Piñata Theory, Alan Chazaro, Black Lawrence Press
Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), Judy Halebsky, University of Arkansas Press
Bonfire Opera, Danusha Laméris, University of Pittsburgh Press
Storage Unit for the Spirit House, Maw Shein Win, Omnidawn
Transformer, Kathleen Winter, The Word Works
FICTION
Tell Me, Signora, Ann Harleman, Elixir Press
The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, Caroline Kim, University of Pittsburgh Press
A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth, Daniel Mason, Little, Brown and Company
Only the River, Anne Raeff, Counterpoint
The Son of Good Fortune, Lysley Tenorio, Ecco/HarperCollins
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Try to Get Lost: Essays on Travel and Place, Joan Frank, University of New Mexico Press
Mobile Home: A Memoir in Essays, Megan Harlan, The University of Georgia Press
Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose, Kay Ryan, Grove Press
Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir, Rebecca Solnit, Viking
Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism, Elizabeth Tallent, Harper
GENERAL NONFICTION
Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa, Marilyn Chase, Chronicle Books
Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, W.W. Norton
The Forests of California: A California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufmann, Heyday
American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Graywolf Press
Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism, Lawrence Rosenthal, The New Press
CALIFORNIA TRANSLATION
California Translation in Poetry
Plagios/Plagiarisms, Ulalume González de León, translated by Terry Ehret, John Johnson, and Nancy J. Morales, from the Spanish, Sixteen Rivers Press
Etudes: A Rilke Recital, Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Art Beck, from the German, Shanti Arts Publishing
My Village: Selected Poems 1972-2014, Wu Sheng, translated by John Balcom, from the Chinese, Zephyr Press
California Translation in Prose
Heaven and Earth, Paolo Giordano, translated by Anne Milano Appel, from the Italian, Pamela Dorman Books/Viking
Surrender, Ray Loriga, translated by Carolina De Robertis, from the Spanish, Mariner Books
Bezoar and Other Unsettling Stories, Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, from the Spanish, Seven Stories Press
Savage Kiss, Roberto Saviano, translated by Antony Shugaar, from the Italian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux Nine Moons, Gabriela Wiener, translated by Jessica Powell, from the Spanish, Restless Books
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Children’s Literature: Younger Readers
The Good Song, Alexandria Giardino, illustrated by Penelope Dullaghan, Cameron Kids
You Matter, Christian Robinson, Atheneum Books for Young Readers
A Book for Escargot, Dashka Slater, illustrated by Sydney Hanson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers
Children’s Literature: Middle Grade
Orphan Eleven, Gennifer Choldenko, Wendy Lamb Books
The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane, Kate O’Shaughnessy, Knopf Books for Young Readers
Land of the Cranes, Aida Salazar, Scholastic Press
Children’s Literature: Young Adult
We Are Not Free, Traci Chee, HMH Books for Young Readers
Dark and Deepest Red, Anna-Marie McLemore, Feiwel & Friends
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Candlewick
History of the Northern California Book Awards
Since 1981, the Northern California Book Reviewers, a volunteer group of book reviewers and book review editors, have honored the work of Northern California authors. One of the group's founders was Fred Cody, proprietor of the famed independent bookstore in Berkeley. The NCBR created an award in his name to honor a lifetime of achievements and distinguished service to the literary community. The Fred Cody Award for lifetime achievement is presented every year to a member of the literary community. Previous recipients include Daniel Ellsberg, Sandra M. Gilbert, Jack Hirschman, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Willis Barnstone, Adam Hochschild, Kay Ryan, Michael Pollan, Al Young, Andrew Hoyem, Diane di Prima, Orville Schell, Philip Levine, Ronald Takaki, Francisco X. Alarcón, Carolyn Kizer, Ishmael Reed, Maxine Hong Kingston, Robert Hass, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Malcolm Margolin, Adrienne Rich, Wallace Stegner, Kay Boyle, William Everson, Alice Walker, Gary Snyder, Jessica Mitford, Tillie Olsen, M.F.K. Fisher, Robert Duncan, Nancy J. Peters, and Tamim Ansary.
Free and open to the public.