Congratulations 2020 National Book Award Winners!

At the New York Times, Alexandra Alter provides a thorough run-down of the 2020 National Book Awards's [virtual] festivities. Among this year's winners, our heartfelt congratulations to poet and translator Don Mee Choi, who won in the poetry category for her collection, DMZ Colony (Wave Books), a "collage of survivor accounts, prose, and quotations with photographs and drawings that takes its name from Korea’s Demilitarized Zone," writes Alter. The gala itself was "an unconventional award ceremony, at a tumultuous time when reality has often has felt stranger than fiction." Reading on from there: 

In normal times, the National Book Awards ceremony is a lavish, black-tie affair held at Cipriani Wall Street, with a ceremony that draws the most powerful people in publishing and a constellation of literary stars. This year, as with so many cultural events that were scrambled as a result of the pandemic, the ceremony was held online, streamed on YouTube and the foundation’s website.

The mood this year was still upbeat, even virtually, as a much larger digital audience joined the celebration, which typically draws around 700 people in person.

“It’s hard in a pandemic,” Lisa Lucas, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, said in a video address. “We were scared we wouldn’t be able to do this show, and here we are.”

Continue reading at the New York Times.