Alumna Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge '73 Shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Award
The National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the 2020 National Book Award today—among them alumna Mei Mei Berssenbrugge '73 for her book of poetry, A Treatise on Stars (New Directions, 2020).
Berssenbrugge has said that the book "describes how communicating with star beings can teach us to continue our world through love and grace, communal grace" and New Directions calls the work "poems of deep listening and patient waiting, open to the cosmic loom, the channeling of daily experience and conversation, gestalt and angels, dolphins and a star-visitor beneath a tree."
According to The New York Times, "Berssenbrugge's lines—saturated with the hallucinatory speed of thought—have the urgency of a manifesto; she consistently calls attention to the inter-relatedness of all things. Few living poets are as able to enter headlong into the spiritual state of our environment and its endangerment: one of the best minds in modern poetry."
Mei-mei Berssenbruggee was born in Beijing and grew up in Massachusetts. Other works of poetry include Hello, the Roses, Empathy, and I Love Artists, as well as collaborations with Kiki Smith (Endocrinology) and Richard Tuttle (Hiddenness). She has also collaborated on performances with Morita Dance Company, Blondell Cummings, and Davide Balula. Berssenbrugge has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two American Book Awards, and honors from the Western States Art Foundation and the Asian American Writers Workshop. She lives in New Mexico and New York City.
Winners of the 2020 National Book Award will be announced live at a virtual ceremony on November 18, 2020.
Original: 9/24/2020
The National Book Foundation announced the 2020 National Book Award longlist last week, naming alumna Mei-mei Berssenbrugge '73 in the Poetry category for her book A Treatise on Stars (New Editions, 2020) and alumnus Frank B. Wilderson III '91 in the Nonfiction category for his book Afropessimism (Liveright 2020). This prestigious award, established in 1950, seeks to "celebrate the best writing in America." The award currently honors the best Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People's Literature published each year.
The National Book Foundation also announced its 2020 5 Under 35 honorees, naming alumna Naima Coster '15 for her book Halsey Street (Little A / Amazon Publishing, 2018). This recognition is given to authors under 35 years of age whose debut work "promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape." Recipients are selected by a National Book Award Winner, Finalist, or Longlisted author, or by a previous honoree of the 5 Under 35 program.
A Treatise on Stars is Berssenbrugge's 13th book of poetry. Its long, lyrical lines both point to and implore a new level of interconnectedness between society and the cosmic, human beings and the natural world. The National Book Foundation calls the book a "work that reveals constellations of our connectedness to fuel introspection."
Mei-mei Berssenbruggee was born in Beijing and grew up in Massachusetts. Other works of poetry include Hello, the Roses; Empathy, and I Love Artists, as well as collaborations with Kiki Smith (Endocrinology) and Richard Tuttle (Hiddenness). She lives in New Mexico and New York City.
Wilderson's Afropessimism is an autobiography and a philosophical exploration of the perpetual cycle of slavery "in all its political, intellectual, and cultural forms." According to the National Book Foundation, the book "vividly takes readers through the author's own life, showing how integral Black people are to society, yet in all places excluded from it," and Kirkus Reviews calls it "an essential contribution to any discussion of race and likely to be a standard text in cultural studies for years to come."
Frank B. Wilderson III's books include Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid and Red White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms. He has received numerous writing awards, including an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction, The Maya Angelou Award for Best Fiction Portraying the Black Experience in America, and more.
Halsey Street follows Penelope Grand as she reconciles her failed career as an artist and her complex family history, which she must confront when she moves back to Brooklyn to care for her ailing father. The book was named a 2018 Best of Debut Fiction by Kirkus Reviews among other recognitions. Professor Ben Marcus calls it a "poignant, moving book, written with deep empathy and sophistication."
Naima Coster's stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, Aster(ix), Kweli, The Paris Review Daily, The Cut, The Sunday Times, and elsewhere. Her forthcoming novel, What's Mine and Yours, will be published in March 2021.
Publishers submitted over 250 books for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry and over 600 books for the Award for Nonfiction. Finalists will be announced on October 6, 2020 and winners will be announced live at a virtual ceremony on November 18, 2020.