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Stephen Engelberg and Aminda Marqués Gonzalez, co-chairs

Heather Clark

Publication
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
Citation
A profoundly researched and illuminating portrait of the influential poet whose life and art mirrored the intellectual, political and sexual awakenings of the era.
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Tags: 2021
Categories: Biography

Megan Kate Nelson

Publication
The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West
Citation
A lively and well-crafted Civil War narrative that expands understanding of the conflict’s Western theaters, where pivotal struggles for land, resources and influence presaged the direction of the country as a whole.
Publisher
Scribner
Tags: 2021
Categories: History

Marcia Chatelain

Citation
A nuanced account of the complicated role the fast-food industry plays in African-American communities, a portrait of race and capitalism that masterfully illustrates how the fight for civil rights has been intertwined with the fate of Black businesses.
Tags: 2021
Categories: History
Publisher
Liveright/Norton
Publication
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Eric Cervini

Publication
The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America
Citation
A painstakingly researched and engagingly written study of the pre-Stonewall fight for gay rights in America, told through the life and unprecedented legal efforts of astronomer Franklin Edward Kameny.
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Tags: 2021
Categories: History

Daniel Mason

Publication
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth
Citation
A collection of stories with themes of class division, the artist's role in society and our need for love and belonging, reflecting a prowess with language and a mastery of the short form.
Publisher
Little, Brown and Company
Tags: 2021
Categories: Fiction

Percival Everett

Publication
Telephone
Citation
A novel of narrative ingenuity that includes both a heartbreaking illness and a crime story in its exploration of discontent, loss and the possibility of redemption.
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Tags: 2021
Categories: Fiction

Louise Erdrich

Citation
A majestic, polyphonic novel about a community’s efforts to halt the proposed displacement and elimination of several Native American tribes in the 1950s, rendered with dexterity and imagination.
Tags: 2021
Categories: Fiction
Publisher
Harper
Publication
The Night Watchman