L.A. Times Book Prizes

Winners announcement

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are dedicated to discovering new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing across the spectrum of book publishing. This year’s ceremony will mark 42 years of recognizing literary achievement. The event will be hosted by Julia Turner, Managing Editor of Arts and Entertainment, and feature remarks by Executive Editor Kevin Merida, and Books Editor, Boris Kachka, among many others. Stay tuned for more details!
The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are dedicated to discovering new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing across the spectrum of book publishing. The 2024 ceremony will mark 44 years of recognizing literary achievement. The finalists will be announced in February 2024.

Winners

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Luis J. Rodriguez is the 42nd winner of the Times’ annual Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Luis served as the official Poet Laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2016. Through poetry, memoir, essays, fiction, and journalism, he has used his craft to advocate for youth lost to gang life, to promote peace in our communities, and to bring people together in this chaotic world.

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Luis J. Rodriguez is the 42nd winner of the Times’ annual Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Luis served as the official Poet Laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2016. Through poetry, memoir, essays, fiction, and journalism, he has used his craft to advocate for youth lost to gang life, to promote peace in our communities, and to bring people together in this chaotic world.

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Luis J. Rodriguez is the 42nd winner of the Times’ annual Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Luis served as the official Poet Laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2016. Through poetry, memoir, essays, fiction, and journalism, he has used his craft to advocate for youth lost to gang life, to promote peace in our communities, and to bring people together in this chaotic world.

2022 Finalists

Category

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Jackie Polzin

Doubleday

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Category Judges

Judge Name 1 · Judge name 2 · Judge name 3 · Judge name 4

2022 Winners

Art Seidenbaum Award
The Return of Faraz Ali: A Novel
Aamina Ahmad
Riverhead Books
Finalists
  • Love by Maayan Eitan
  • Stories From the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana
  • Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah
  • Manywhere: Stories by Morgan Thomas
  • Biography
    G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
    Beverly Gage
    Viking
    Finalists
  • Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality by Tomiko Brown-Nagin
  • Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century by Jennifer Homans
  • Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss
  • His Name Is George Floyd: One Man`s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa
  • Christopher Isherwood Prize
    Solito: A Memoir
    Javier Zamora
    Hogarth
    Javier Zamora is the winner of the 2022 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose for “Solito: A Memoir.” Sponsored by the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the award encompasses fiction, travel writing, memoir and diary — and honors exceptional work. “Solito” is a necessary memoir for our country and our time. In writing it, Zamora has contributed to the larger canon of uniquely American stories. Chepito is 9-years old when he undertakes a journey across half a continent to find his parents in the United States. Zamora’s enthralling, youthful voice and poetic simplicity belie an unflinching narrative of migration, terror, and beauty.
     
    Current Interest
    Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America
    Dahlia Lithwick
    Penguin Press
    Finalists
  • The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy by Anand Giridharadas
  • They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sarah Kendzior
  • The Storm is Here: An American Crucible by Luke Mogelson
  • Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts
  • Fiction
    Solenoid
    Mircea Cartarescu Translated by Sean Cotter
    Deep Vellum
    Finalists
  • Exalted by Anna Dorn
  • Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham
  • The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai
  • Paradais by Fernanda Melchor Translated by Sophie Hughes
  • Graphic Novel/Comics
    Wash Day Diaries
    Jamila Rowser & Robyn Smith
    Chronicle Books
    Finalists
  • Dog Biscuits by Alex Graham
  • Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki Translated by Ryan Holmberg
  • Men I Trust by Tommi Parrish
  • Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver
  • History
    By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners
    Margaret A. Burnham
    W.W. Norton & Company
    Finalists
  • Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakin
  • The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge
  • The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution by Andrew M. Wehrman
  • Teaching White Supremacy: America's Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of our National Identity by Donald Yacovone
  • Innovator's Award
    Freedom to Read Foundation
    Freedom to Read Foundation is the 2022 winner of the Innovator’s Award. This award recognizes the people and institutions that are doing cutting edge work to bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future, whether in terms of new business models, new technologies or new applications of narrative art. Created to support and defend librarians, Freedom to Read Foundation is as important and relevant today as it was at its inception in 1969. We honor its continued fight against book bans and its mission to protect all Americans' right to read and access information.
    Mystery/Thriller
    Secret Identity
    Alex Segura
    Flatiron Books
    Finalists
  • We Lie Here: A Thriller by Rachel Howzell Hall
  • Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King
  • All That's Left Unsaid: A Novel by Tracey Lien
  • The Cartographers: A Novel by Peng Shepherd
  • Poetry
    Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems
    Dionne Brand
    Duke University Press Books
    Finalists
  • Martian: The Saint of Loneliness by James Cagney
  • Ante body by Marwa Helal
  • Daughters of Harriet: Poems by Cynthia Parker-Ohene
  • Customs: Poems by Solmaz Sharif
  • Ray Bradbury Prize
    Spear
    Nicola Griffith
    Tordotcom
    Finalists
  • The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
  • The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings
  • The Mountain in the Sea: A Novel by Ray Nayler
  • Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
  • Robert Kirsch
    James Ellroy
    James Ellroy is the 43rd winner of the Times’ annual Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. The award is given to an author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition. Ellroy is a Los Angeles noir iconoclast whose writing life was shaped by the tragic, unsolved murder of his mother when he was 10, fostering an obsession with crime and the underworld that has animated his fiction and nonfiction across more than 5 decades.
    Science & Technology
    How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
    Sabrina Imbler
    Little, Brown and Company
    Finalists
  • Life on the Rocks: Building a Future for Coral Reefs by Juli Berwald
  • Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez
  • Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants by James Vincent
  • An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
  • Young Adult Literature
    Torch
    Lyn Miller-Lachmann
    Lerner Publishing Group (Carolrhoda Lab®)
    Finalists
  • Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed
  • All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
  • Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
  • The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin by Kip Wilson
  • Make your donation

    For more than four decades, the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have recognized outstanding literary works published in fiction, history, poetry, biography, young adult literature, science and technology, science fiction and more. The book prizes are a vital and prestigious part of the annual Festival of Books, and now you can support them through our community fund.
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