Each year the National Book critics circles awards are presented to the best books published in the United States as voted on by 600 literary critics. Heres this years Award Ceremony from the new school in new york city. Its 90 minutes. Hello, everyone. Good evening and welcome. Im the director of the creative writing and we are happy to welcome back our friends. For over 15 years we have been honored to host this award in the auditorium. For the fifth year from the Creative Writing Program interviewed the finalists in a series of interviews can you hear me . Okay, the interview is posted on the blog and the website. You can check them out on book critics. Org. Organizing and posting over 30 interviews over a threeweek period is a huge job and one that couldnt have been job without kelly stewart, student interviewers and the others. Thank you to the Board Members and sylvan simon for all of their efforts and a huge thank you for the board i wonder if we can get a round of applause to the board. [applause] they may mention this also got it is entirely volunteer or actually this whole enterprise has been volunteer job. And i think that today its been called preaching to the choir but we need to remember to call our congressmen and senators. Some things we would like to have happen or not have happen we would like to keep funding for healthcare and planned parenthood. The books editor and board president of the National Book critics circle. [applause] its nice to see so many people here tonight. Im the president of the National Book critics circle any its my pleasure to welcome youm to the Award Ceremony for the publishing year 2016. We are delighted to have you join us this evening as we honor the outstanding books of the year in six categories, fiction, nonfiction, biography,y, autobiography, poetry and criticism. Id like to extend our gratitude to the authors that have joined us here tonight from across thea country and around the globe agents and publicists put their work to the attention. The National Book critics circle was founded in 1974 with a conversation that took place at the Algonquin Hotel among a group of critics but wanted to establish a set of awards given by the critics themselves. Amont among the extraordinary titles over the decades are maxine kingstons warrior, the son solomon, the photography, james the changing light at sand over and the brief wondrous life of oscar wilde to name just a few. Its grown to include 700 members from across the country plus more than 200 nonvoting student members into supporting friends of the nbcc. Its expanded to include the john leonard enterprise, the notable citation for excellence in reviewing and recognizing outstanding reviews by a member, the Lifetime Achievement award for individuals or institutions that have made an extraordinaryr contribution to the world of letters. In these and many other plays the activities, panels and events they sponsor throughout the year the organization has grown far beyond what the founders might have imagined. A nurturinthey nurture and suppe development of the next generation of book critics. The project was shepherded through an already hectic award season by Elizabeth Taylor a board member and other board a members read more than 100 submissions by inspiring critics young and old. We are pleased to announce the first class of fellows are paul w. Gleason, summer mcdonald, Ishmael Mohammed and heather scott. I believe Zachary Graham is with us tonight and if you are what you stand and get some applause. [applause] tonight is the culmination of 12 months of extensive reading, discussion, argument,s and coun counterargument, online and facetoface. At the beginning of each year the 24 member board divides itself into the awarding memb categories in a month is followed as humanly possible in each of those respective categories. After the selection of the finalists in january, all 24 Board Members read every one of the 30 titles. A twomonth long marathon that is testimony to the high level of commitment by the board. Earlier today we met in the classroom here at the new school and talked about each group of finalists and tonight we arere proud to name the recipients of the award. I would like to ask them to stand so that we might recognize their effort. [applause] the Board Members are elected to threeyear terms in several members are at the end of the return each year cycling off the board and i would like to take a moment to recognize them for their work. Collect, david, charles and camilla. [applause] the nbcc couldnt put together our Public Events without the generosity and support of so many people and institutions. I would like to thank in particular the new school and movies, the writer of the program into the associate director who make things run so smoothly. We thank them for making their facilities available to the nbcc for our ceremony. Id also like to thank the individual organizations that supported us this year, the institute for public knowledge, center for fiction, the wine and spirits magazine, the ace hotel and a special thank you as well who joined us to help publicize the nbcc who is up in the booth indicates the organizationo tho running in small and crucial ways and also to our vp for the awards to undertake the complex task of tonights events through the blog, twitter, facebook and instant graham. I invite you all to toast thefan finalists. It will be held at the center just a block up from here and 55 west 13th street on the second floor. Tickets can be purchased at the door. We greatly appreciate your support. Selling copies of the book by the finalists and Award Winners and we encourage you to patronize them. To get things started, one more thing i want to say to people as they come up to receive their awards, you can come up either side i would just ask after you have received your award from a stand on the stage for a second, some photographers want to shoot you, not literally. [laughter] then the new board member is stage left and he will escort you off into the green room where hes going to shoot a series of portraits and he will accompany you back into the auditorium. Its easier than it sounds. To get things started i would like to welcome the board member to present the john leonard prize. Thank you. [applause] good evening. It is an honor for me to be here this evening to present this award which you probably know is givenoticegiven by the members e best book of any genre. When i was in high school ten or 12 years ago writing reviews for a Student Newspaper i read a lot of critics but the one i always looked for, the byline i looked for was john leonard and what i realized and strove to emulate was the modesty, responsibility and generosity. He was a critic that was utterly serious about literature and new not take himself too seriously. Before it was popular to do so he took a special interest in the new and minority place fiction so i think that he would be delighted with this years winner. Yaa gyasi wraps around the American Experience of slavery. The spine of the story is a bifurcated family tree. The competent debut shows the way they are tainted with a terrible sin of human bondage. Yaa gyasi was born in, and grew up in the American South in huntsville alabama. She has an english degree from stanford and ian and mfa from iowa. She lives in new york city now and writes like an angel. It is my honor and pleasure to present the john leonard prize for the best first book in any genre to yaa gyasi for home going. [applause] congratulations. [applause] im so grateful to be here celebrating with all of you tonight. Thank you to the National Book critics circle for this tremendous honor and to see leonard and the late john leonard for championing new writers. What a privilege it is to bevils recognized for the john leonard award tonight. Id also liki would also like ty brilliant editor, my firecracker of a publicist and my endlessly encouraging agent all of whom believe in this book so fiercely. Another thank you to Matthew Nelson for his exclusive partnership. Finally i would like to thank my family especially my parents who came to this country with littlt more than the clothing on their backs and the children in their arms. Any time it feels like every day immigrants and refugees are being met with new fronts to their humanity and even more grateful for the sacrifices my appearance made so that i could one day stand here before all of you and accept this award. Thank you again. [applause] good evening and welcome to the make America Great again read again portion of the program. Its been my privilege to serve as the chair of the committee. Each year, the nbcc awards for excellence in reviewing to recognize outstanding work by one of our members. The citation is awarded in honor of a Founding Member of this organization is. Since 2012, the citation comes with a thousand dollar cash prize endowed by the board member yours truly. [applause] on a personal note i would likea to take a minute to say that it was 50 years ago today that the book editor of a small texas daily added that the title book critic to the byline of this then 17yearold writer. Book critics who. After careful deliberation, the committee selected the following finalists for the 2016. They are julia klein, leo wabsen, christian lorenzen, michelle dean, and becca. This years award goes to michelle dean. [applause] her journalism and criticism appears regularly in the guardian, the new republic, salon and many other distinguished publications. Shes been a fulltime writer since 2012. Her book about women critics ani intellectuals titled sharp thehn women who made an art out of having an opinion is forthcoming from grove atlantic. Without further ado, please join me in giving a warm welcome to michelle dean. [applause] thank you for letting me get it. Speak tonight. That. Speak tonight. Im glad to be in this company. I think im expected to Say Something about criticism, but ive never been very big on what i think of the claims of criticism and i reject this whole business of drawing thewh line between critics and others. No critic i know of, not Dorothy Parker were others ever considerethat wereconsidered hes opposed to a writer so i want to Say Something about writing instead. St not long ago on the internet, i saw a photograph of a small baby raccoon and it was hunched over on a road and the caption somebody had given it read when you realize you dont want to be responsible for anything anymore and you just want to be map and be small. I see pictures of cute animals on the internet every day and im not usually seized by then the way that i was this one. The desire to abdicate and give up, for me that is primal righti now. Like everybody els else alive, m fighting a slight response over time. Theres a lot going on. Every day brings fresh fear and outrage and although we have these tiny outlets of action,thn the internet posts petitions and marches, no single one of them is going to fix what is happening. The world is on the verge of something and one way to look at it is that we are climbing up the ar arc of the moral univers. But im present vantage it is pretty hard to see if it is actually bending towards justice the way Martin Luther king said. Its natural to want to look away. I want to look away the last few years i think we all have. The brave new world of ours that started before november 8 and the struggle we presently find ourselves in is not a mistake fluke. If she was around to tell us, she would point out it came from something that has been simmering here for years. It was not a big bang and it crept into our lives while we were napping. Sometimes power works that way but i still wish we hadnt missed it. As i thought about this a few weeks ago i picked up for the First Time Since i was assigned as a Canadian High School student and of course you know all the jokes now aboutow approaching nonfiction and you dont need me to make another one. But reading it, but i thought about was mostly ther theres sa few books like that being published right now. The application of literary intelligence to this question of power is kind of out of style and many writers seem more interested in exploring themselves with the limits of the fiction that power is the way we create it and inflict it on others. These questions might have a role in those books but they are not usually the central the occupation. To borrow a phrase from one of the speeches, i would never ask a writer to be a jukebox, but there is a kind of lookin walkiy going on right now by a lot of writers who should know bettersh and im kind of troubled way that. By design, writers live their lives in what foster once called our own tiny kingdom. E we are so very often a loan but it doesnt relieve the responsibility of getting up and walking around. Im just as skeptical about literature as i am the claims of criticism. But i do think there is a bottomline to writing. Bottom line to writing. When a writer is supposed to do is Pay Attention a good novelist pays attention to the characters, a good biographer pays attention to the documents before her and a good criticic pays attention to things she has been brought to evaluate. Paying attention is the only thing that guarantees insight and the only weapon we have against power because you cant fight the things that you cant actually see. The power a writer has is the power to make things visible an they are the things we do not typically look at or think about. Telling a story about these things as this enormous power. People are going to forget the headline that will remember a story so here is the one i think about a lot. In my other writing life as a journalist, i met this young woman last year who had been literally trapped for most of her life. Her name was gypsy. Her whole life her mother insisted she was incredibly sicy and then one day she realized her mother had been lying to her and with her lies from others hr strapped the two of them in this broad. She tried to get away but her mother physically wouldnt let her go so she found a young mant on the internet, fell in love with him and after she asked him to, she told her mother. Now she is in prison trying to figure out who she is in the aftermath of all that. At the same time as i was reporting the story, i happened to be given a book to review and it was a big brick of a book about a man pretty clearly the authors alter ego that felt trapped and i will say it here because i said it in print i didnt like this novel that i knew one of the reasons i disliked it was the novelists and curiosity about actual suffering in the world. He just had no idea that my dislike turned into this rhetoric as it happened so much i suspect that it won me this award as a critic because i got a little bit funny and savage in the way that i yelled at him in print. But i only wanted to remind him as i fell off and have to remind myself to Pay Attention. Thank you. [applause] [applause] hello, everybody. My name is david and its been my privilege to chair the Lifetime Achievement award this year in the committee. It is a Great Committee to chair because all of the potential nominees are phenomenal. The award is named for a Founding Member of the National Book critics circle and the award honors significant and sustained contributions to thes literary culture. During 34 years the award has been presented, weve honored individuals like Toni Morrison and whose achievements have been so universally acknowledged that their choice needed no explanation. In other years we have been pleased to call attention to such as Bill Henderson of the press, the archives, and who had not yet received the recognition that the lifetime contribution to the literary culture is served. The literary culture is margaret attwood. [applause] tonight we honor her accomplishments for her work as a novelist and essayist and critic for the influence on writers and editors and publishers were the human beings into were in survive for writing about surviving on civil rights rights, human rights and environmental degradation and writing about surviving with dignity and decency. For all of this and more she needs no introduction. They will get one anyway. To introduce Margaret Atwood on to this stage a literaryhe agent since 1963 and her career began in the city at the reynolds agency which was the first literaryerary agency in the United States established in the 80s for bush she later jollied that agency and a 1971 g. O. P. The agency in greenwich alleged it in 1975 she took her shop and writers out west. [applause] again and again i became margarets literary agent 48 years ago and it is hard to believe that because i dont feel that and as we all know time goes very fast. And did not meet her and tell 1970 but i discovered her 1969 and picked up her novel the edible woman from a bookstore window in montreal. I a ticket back to my Brooklyn Heights apartment in the read it through the night. As dawn came i was so filleds, s with his brilliance that i went out to the problem id just to walk back and forth and back and forth with the energy it came from those pages. That. I had to find her. I went into the office there was an editor that i knew his name was peter. Hot in those the phones had to space sit so i was dialing well the light came on and i picked it up and itso was peter im sorry it was peter davison. There is a lot of peters. [laughter] so peter said i am about to publish a book of a canadian author i thought you might like to consider i said i would if the name is Margaret Atwood and there we were. When well begin. About one year later we were sitting across a table i was very nervous to meet her read her novel and i had read some of her poetry but she didnt know anythingme about me. When we sat down at the table she startled me by asking what sign are you . Iid,h am of the edge of the nine issues of both of my parents are germanize. That went pretty well. Neaughter] next question. Ry careful can is your palm . Said she looked very carefully at both and i dont remember what she said except you have a lot of wines. D give but not so long after that with a general conversation margaret said i think we should give it a try. If wa so it began. To be published by simon and schuster but before it was published in the states in 1972, it was published in canada. Her publisher there owned the company said jack was flamboyant he knew she won the governors award so he invited her to a Publishing Party and i decided to file from new york to go with her and i was glad that i did because when we arrived at this fine house in the final part of town, there were a lot of cars per go inside we walked we were able to get through the crowd withoutim anyone being noticed. So we stepped into the powder room she said now what do we do . And i said we should be happy. That is the wrong thing to say because she can see farther ahead as refection proves again and again in she sell a was to come and her life was about to be changed after the great party we went to her home in toronto into a living room and did not turn on any lights i wanted to Say Something i was excited but i nednt and after a while she citadel is wanted to be a good writer i never expected to be a popular one. So time passes it is known 1972 and at that time she was writing poetry and recognized in the York Community as a poet beforel tima they recognized her as an important novelist she spoke several times and her poetry collections were being read by the feminist. Power politics, as one example. Margaret never identified herself as a feminist. She identified herself as a strong and independent womanve e she was gracious to all of those feminists that wanted to put her name but she did not go that way she does with back to her desk and kept writing. After surfacing the next ditzy. Novel ideas want to explain and not usually this did see i travelled across the country yesterday and i have been sick. If she had not called me i was asleep by would have slept through the alarm clock. [laughter] so now i ann get a message that may prefer networks are available so it cannot pick up the wireless year. [laughter]ing abou my coaches telling me to skip ahead but i dont want to skip without talkinge about the book that came next and so to demonstrate how differently she writes. She has so many voices and forever sean rush she prefers soleras domestic novel about relationships then lady oracle that was aer novel about a young woman to the imagination was looking in instead of out so you have to read that one. Ecame he and then was bodily harm and this is what i believe, is this when you came in the picture . Became her editor from Simon Schuster with bodily harm. So we have been with one another for a very longg time. Maids t after bodily harm of a woman in a relationship she moves to the caribbean and gets involved in the drug war. So next is a big surprise was the handmaids tale. She cannot to visit me in santa monica when she was writing the handmaids tale. I was not well at the time i take it was a Courtesy Call but after we finished our exchange i asked her whether you working on . And she said, she never tells titles are what she is writing. Said you dont have to answer anything but is there any way i can help you . She said no. I have to do this but it scares me. Ith overnighter became the International Best seller and almost overnight with trump coming in that has become a best seller again on april 26 there has been written part series produced by a hulu. Use we went to the berlin filmd. Festival because it was made into a movie with exactly the people she wanted it wasnt exactly because the director had a fight in wanted more special effects. So we had a german director Ann Margarets wonderful hede in some guy and a very good novelist himself appreciated in canada lab but has not come across the border yet. Also he wrote two books one called the bedside book of birds and the bedside book of peace. It is a beautiful book with wonderful drawings and photographs. It is a treasure. And it is available in this country in hardcover. Know i can tell that i am talking too long so i will skip forward for a career in berlin after the wall has fallen were in the limousine with harold going across checkpoint charlie we had driven into east berlin which looks like a film set of a world war ii disaster film. Is a terrifying landscape. We pulled up in front of what looks like it could have been a movie theater, as somebody opens the door for us and inside is a crowd of people. The film is shown in after word the crowd stood and clapped and stamped and then they began bringing flowers on the stage to margaret and harold and i am notto exaggerating when say there was a pile that high of flowers. So appreciative of the Ann Stephenson to margaret, you understood the way we were. You understood what it meant to live in a wall the way and. Thank you. Know after the handmaids tale, margaret was continuing to write poetry and essays and then she wrote catseye about girls growing up together and how nice and caddie they could be with one another is the most autobiographical because it describes the character who lives in the woods like she did in quebec to i will not do any more descriptions of novels. I will pull this to a close. Is remarkable to the associated were to be a partner with such a great talent. Because that kind of talent is always electric. And it has inspired me over an years. It is has been so exciting for me to be the agent of this talent to work with the publishers and helping them to see the value that is there. Derful it is always a gamble withth the publishers and sometimes they dont see as far ahead as others do. But we have been really fortunate to the way margaret has attracted a wonderful editors and publishers. Finally, i want to say this. Anr my everyday has been filleddinir with this woman and her work. It has been enormous privilege. Before vacate here i took all my books and put them onon[a a dining room table and then lifted them one by one. And i thought oh my god. There she is for all of us forever. There she is. For all of us forever of pages everywhere. [applause] [cheers and applause] i am very, very very happy to be here because it brought me across the border [laughter] i said to somebody should the my computer in cellphone . They said how many books you want to sell because it would be a big story. Thanks thebaid phoebe for covering all the way here. You got here and you made it through we have had a lot of the ventures like that. Ve had a we took up of flying leape with the handmaids tale sight unseen in the publicist from doubleday and marshall from a distance and also the film agent and including many friends from over the years. Ored to and deeply honored to have been given National Book critics circle awards Lifetime Achievement award and i am in all. Aware blake to say our important it is that you do what youd do. I have also put in some time as a book critic and it is the hardest thing i have ever done as a writer. Another authors work carries a heavy responsibility. The task is to be plausible but also be accurate but generous with the appraisals in to be at stake in every author knows how much work and anxiety goes into a book so being canadian sometimes a half to tie my hands to the chair to the others expense it could be a struggle and also book criticism is a thankless task. So therefore you know, all of those adjectives that apply to them are forgotten if anything bailey smacking of imperfection is the end of time. [laughter] was accomplished writer wrote that as an insult. T i did not know. So that period in the early 70s when i was given the thin but books from women live with beefier on the part of bin the navy reprimanded or by others of the group that were not considered lady enough . As i was glad to review then once more after time passed. I wl [laughter] they cannot get back at you. I also reviewed living ones. For this a reason i give blood we must all do our part because of we dont contribute to the Worthy Enterprises blood or book reviews are both in the same package. O our pa right now what you do as critics is sorely needed. Never have there been so many sides to the political spectrum to shut down the voices of others to obfuscate and consume and manipulate been vilified these trusted publications for gulf and to control the army with the arm of the dictatorship or to shut down the independent media outlets. Were part of the barriersp. Of an open democracy so keep that your craft despite the hazards readers everywhere will be grateful to you. Because there are still places on the planet to become a reading that would accur a severe penalty. Although i am not holding my breath. Where level cherished this Lifetime Achievement award like all the blessings we only have one life to live where did this lifetime go . Thank you again. [applause] good evening i will pull double duty to announce both poetry and criticism tonight for the Poetry Committee who could not overcome stella she is in north irelandittee where she is our fulbright with her family. Sole at herb the past i lead the discussion today about her very fine collection of poets the finalist for the citation of poetry 2016an include Ishion Hutchinson. Founl bernadette mayor. Robert danowski. And monica, of black acre. The citation this year goes to Ishion Hutchinson. [applause] many of Ishion Hutchinson polands of busing will sidewinding sentence that shuttles between the past in the present the have and havenots with outrage and beauty tracing landscapes of duty in childhood from his native jamaica his poems are this gains to mix that trouble and equality and travel. En they concentrate for for ending her and to look getting justice the kind of concentration we might all wish as we try to name the world that we live in and what we want to see next. Listening to him, we do to. [applause] [cheers and applause] good evening. I was hoping to avoid the microphone i was so nervous. But i am very moved and honored to be awarded National Book critics circle awards for poetry award to except that in every of my grandmother. It is beyond words to stand here in her name because the gift that she gave me continues to see me writing poetry and ive never grateful for her part by one to think and so many other people i can remember but i want to pay homage to the poets i had the honor to be nominated with. [applause] new hat to. [laughter] i my name is walter. [laughter] g [applause]iticism and i have the great pleasure and luxury to chair the Criticism Committee andve also thanks to the board who participated in the conversation today about these five finalists. Carol anderson, more price mark reis, alice kaplan olivier length olivia when off. Peter warner notes reading to living in the living to read with catapults. The 2016 citation of criticism goes to carol anderson. [applause] [cheers and applause] reminding us that taking the country back is the american political status quo since the 60s feeling that rage is the analysis for seeming resistance to the Political Investments with this historical narrative covering a judicial revolution and the documents in a row was documented to destroy those changes like pieces of a mosaic to explain the unspoken truth of the racial divide white rage undermines democracy to weaken the nation economically. Reading andersens convincing critique that we we, of black, white, native american or a latino come to a understand the goals of white rage, to reject the introductions to step out of a shower chateau shadowed that is our future. I ws and applause] thank you. My agent rob food called me after the Washington Post came out and said there is a book give there. George gibson. You worked with me every step of the way and above all, my parents who came from nothing but it gave me the fight. E ability and gave me the ability to see that we can be so much more than we are and so much better. Also to the critics. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] i am chair of the autobiography committee and we have had a lively month long discussion about the books with the ever growing and changing autobiography. Marion, of the iceberg. House. Jenny and gratitude the return of father sons and everything in between in this song poet and the award goes to lab girl. [applause] with each beginning is the end she writes the eloquent memoir about a biologistbut were each given one chance to beat as a possible and inevitable. To interweave her own narrative showing how plants are not that different from human beings and take a long time to turn into what you are supposed to be and lab girl is about that journey and excepting is her editor. [applause] i know how much hopewanted wanted to be here she is now living in norway doing her lab and she was stuck by our story here so she gave me this speech to give all of you with her profound gratitude. Having grown up in minnesota ive not unfamiliar with the sudden spring snow storms that dashed the hopes of the plants. And i was 13 years old a blizzard kept me from the thompson twins concert. You may remember them behind the one hit wonder. Holds me now. I cried all night in disappointment and i wish i could be with you this evening righty in lab girl was the most joyful experience of my life to see readers find something good has been a close second everyone who lives in the endless road the choices decided to pause and read aloud girl tonight especially thanks to the critics who read for a life in for a living in gave this first time of her a chance and that stands for everything a book can be. Your praise amazes me often say while it is my story it is our book for those who believed it could be a book even before it was the manuscript. And those who wanted to tell the world about it and those who wanted it to be beautiful and also to rabin to a this stands before youla wearing a White Lab Coat . Ready is my strict instructions . I just got this this morning. [laughter] twentyone slab parole to live forever we made all of this i am truly thankful. [applause] Elizabeth Taylor. Delighted to be here for a biography. Wonderful year for biographies and here theyelk. Are and Shirley Jackson and Jamal Jackson the life of the american and visionary michael, crazy in george here with the life of blackandwhite. In their group jim the winner is is a Ruth Franklin [applause] the zero works of literature are of his bone showing as the lottery that appeared in the new yorker in 1948 it was the Perfect Piece of americana that ideal day than is the story of barbarism with eerie resonance so this compassionate and authoritative biography between her vexed marriage, her children, her mother and anxiety that placed her at the center of literary and domestic midcentury america and in this extraordinary biography she made this piece that jackson should be considered as an underappreciated feminist hero and the important writer. Groth franklin. [applause] i am to use superstitious direction have prepared be very anything so this will be very short so thanks for offering maya book in this way i am sold pleased and thrilled that Shirley Jackson is getting this recognition also thanks to my agent who has been my steadiest and most enthusiastic champion the best champion a writer could want. Have been so lucky to have u. S. Maya supporters almost from the very beginning ofe my career and i am so grateful to you both to the extraordinary time team and mine a publicist and everyone who did such a at a beautiful job to design the book in print it out to. Rethink biography is written by many hands and theyre so many people whose words i relied upon writing this book from the people that were so generous to give me their time to those never got to meet that preserved for letters for one day for me to find and her children that we trust me with their confidence. Thank you so much i of so thrilled to see her get this recognition. N. [applause] it is my joy is sacred to read to the chair person of the nonFiction Committee. We read hundreds of wonderful books with a range of interest and topics to invite us to Pay Attention to power. The finali says he evicted and, from the beginning for racist ideas nation books. Dark money in the failed effort dive is vietnam from Harvard University press and breaking to save a life in the award this year for nonfiction goes to evicted. [applause] and here is the citation poverty and profit get profit in the city with remarkable clarity it is a product of exploitation and eviction but because. And to be swept up in the eviction process to another and how that compote compounds discrimination with the eviction to see the social workers, lawyers and judges in the eviction process. If we document how the poor make ends meet without asking why their bills are so high or where the money is flowing. Congratulations. [cheers and applause] they give so much i am so deeply honored by this and never thought i would be in a room like this so all you lovers and defenders of books you make up the National Book critics circle awards you do so much to expand their reach although the critic is overlooked and undervalued i would like toer think maya brilliant wife you are my favorite story. Into my editor thanks for helping me find it. T. In that with exacting in sight and also the honor to those who invest in this book in my publicist to help to me spend a spread lae word for lack of housing the maturity of four families in america . That is coursing through the city as a consequence of povertypovet that supports the research in several universities also with university of wisconsin and that is profound most of all of a like to find a those are in milwaukee and that is an affirmation with that ingenuity for their graceful refusal with the affirmation of their children to remind us so what they wrote in the american that should be tell them they are better off we want to tell every well fed optimistic american and it is tolerable that some americans should be beamedat in body and spirit of my standard of comparison and how much better it could be. [applause] it was my a great delight to chair the Fiction Committee our finalist this year are moving below. Imagine the gone. And swing time. And the fiction citation goes to movies louise. [applause] as an arresting novel that takes the entirety of newark native American History and then as a child this fatally shot about grief but it is about so much more in life they were determined for them a there was room for laughter and forgiveness with their ancestors whispering to you. [applause] thank you. I put on i make of make up. My god. [laughter] with such dramatically wonderful novels to my fellow novelist thanks to the National Book critics circle awards i want to sayho how extraordinary it has spent to see how many young people are part of the critics world here. And i want to give a special shot out to the gentleman of fashioning a trip my picture [laughter] the ball the young people in this room they explore being a part of the book world. [applause] now more the never read your spirit and energy also to my exacting extraordinary editor. [applause] and who has lived through so much with me. And jonathan for standing up for me when controversy would occur. Thank you very much for cheering me on ann representing me how like to thank my mother and my dad dad, as an immigrant, of an immigrant he was born here. And my daughter persia who came here with me is a descendant of my grandfather and took on the role to become the speaker of the link wage that is endangered and now is tied in a version school because because b. C. So much what happens last night when i was here i realized something very profound and riyal work alone in their somethingrt with our solitude the resembles the truth and i realized that i wanted to come back here tonight because i want to be in a roomful of people that researchers say and seeking the truth who might find it here and there with that they tsa got across your piece of criticism that eliminated or made a profound and were all in this together and the truth was being assaulted the only in our country but all over the world there is a great rush of deceit and more than ever we have to look into the truth and thereafter the truth it made me so happy to be with people that felt this way about the truth. So let us go back to where we write and let this be fierce and dangers about the truth and when it comes out of us end up pouring out of a cent to find in that truthrent the strength to bear the truth can find the strength. Thank you. [applause] wed great evening thanks for coming congratulations to all finalist and recipients if they could come to this stage just to take a photograph then i invite all of you to join us at the reception to talk rabis extraordinary books. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. What is still intact were the 800 billion of medicaid cuts and these will hit American Communities like a wrecking ball and the pain will be felt for perot. Cod you get a tax break to . Directly think it is wrong the ordinary people lose coverage spec is the Walton Family in an ordinary family . Ordinary people are losing coverage today. They are getting a 52 billion. These are kids mostly born and raised in germany with legal passports they have left to go fight in the caliphate most countries dont know they have left a comeback they dont know they were gone so now they do things like it manchester as horrible as that was my expectation is we will see more of that kind of attack. We asked what is power and quoted something said obama had said as coming to the United States with trump and he said it is a moment that real power is i hate to use the word but real power is a year. Fear