The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre. The purpose of the award is to acknowledge the excellence and multicultural diversity of American writing.
2005
2004
Crescent /
Diana Abu-Jaber
Enemy Aliens
/ David Cole
Shifting:
The Double Lives of Black Women in America /
Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden
Breaking Away
/ Kristin Lattany
Multicultural
American Literature: Comparative Black,
Native, Latino/a, and Asian American Fictions / A. Robert Lee
What I Stole
/ Diane Sher Lutovich
All Over
Creation / Ruth Ozeki
Prayer to
Spider Woman / Renato Rosaldo
Freedom Is,
Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of The
Sixties / Scott Saul
And All the
Saints / Michael Walsh
2003
2002
Listening to
Our Grandmothers' Stories : the Bloomfield
Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852-1949 / Amanda J. Cobb
Scapegoat:
The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation / Andrea Dworkin
When
Living Was a Labor Camp / Diana García
Kissing
the Bread: New and Selected Poems, 1969-1999 / Sandra M. Gilbert
Blowback:
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
/ Chalmers Johnson
Phoenix
Eyes and Other Stories / Russell Charles Leong
The
Island of Lost Luggage / Janet McAdams
Bruised
Hibiscus / Elizabeth Nunez
Killing
Time with Strangers / W. S. Penn
Packinghouse
Daughter: A Memoir / Cheri Register
Jimmy
Corrigan : The Smartest Kid on Earth / Chris Ware
Seasons
of Mangoes and Brainfire / Carolyne Wright
2000
From the Belly
of My Beauty / Esther G. Belin
Sing
When the Spirit Says Sing: Selected 6 New Poems 1960-1990 / Jon
Eckels,
Amok:
Essays from an Asian American Perspective / Emil Guillermo
Barefoot
Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child / Elva Trevino Hart
It's
Not Nostalgia: Poetry and Prose / Michael Lally
All
Souls: A Family Story from Southie / Michael Patrick MacDonald
The
Ice Workers Sings and Other Poems / Andres Montoya
Mothers
Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood / Introduction by Kate
Moses and Edited by Camille Pen
Ecology
of a Cracker Childhood / Janisse Ray
Italian
American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity / David A. J.
Richards
Spoken
Soul: The Story of Black English / John Russell Rickford, Russell
John Rickford and Geneva Smitherman
Why
She Left Us / Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
The
Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art /
Allan
J. Ryan
Year
in Nam: A Native American Soldier's Story / Leroy TeCube
Front
Row at the White House: My Life and Times / Helen Thomas
Exotica
/ David Toop
Heads
by Harry / Lois Ann Yamanaka
1999
The Farming of
Bones / Edwidge Danticat
Right
Here, Right Now / Trey Ellis
The
Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature
/ edited by Lauro Flores
What
Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop / Gary Gach
Hip
Hop America / Nelson George
The Last Paradise / James D. Houston
Ghost
Dancing / Anna Linzer
Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup'ik Eskimo Examples / Jerry
Lipka
Charming
Billy / Alice McDermott
The
Freshour Cylinders / Speer Morgan
The
Men of Brewster Place / Gloria Naylor
Salvation
and Other Disasters / Josip Novakovich
First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim /
edited by Judith Roche and Meg McHutchison
Sometimes
the Soul / Gioia Timpanelli
Survivor's
Medicine / E. Donald Two-Rivers
Nobody's
Son: Notes from an American Life / Luis Alberto Urrea
Just
My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race
Relations / Brian Ward
1998
On Native
Ground: Memoirs and Impressions / Jim
Barnes
Bitter
Grounds / Sandra Benitez
Dog
Road Woman / Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Blues
Legacies and Black Feminism / Angela Y. Davis
Underworld
/ Don DeLillo
The
Birth of Bebop / Scott DeVeaux
Comfort
Woman / Nora Okja Keller
The Undertaking / Thomas Lynch
All
Saints / Brenda Marie Osbey
Love
Like Gumbo / Nancy Rawles
Safari
West / John A. Williams
1997
Et Tu ... Raza / Alurista
The
Post-Rapture Diner / Dorothy Barresi
Black
Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life / William
M.
Banks
Gospel
Choirs: Psalms of Survival in an Alien Land Called Home / Derrick
Bell
Maker
of Saints / Thulani Davis
Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies / Tom De Haven
Imagine
the Angels of Bread / Martin Espada
Dreams of the Centaur / Montserrat Fontes
The
New World Border: Prophecies, Poems & Loqueras for the End of the
Century / Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Race
Traitor / edited by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey
Women
of the Beat Generation / Brenda Knight
Among
the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands /
Shirley Geok-Lin Lim
Contours
of the Heart: South Asians Map North America / Sunaina Maira and
Rajini Srikanth
Nightland / Louis Owens
1996
Reservation
Blues / Sherman Alexie
The Physician of London / Stephanie Cowell
Arranged
Marriage / Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Longing / Maria Espinosa
The
Tunnel / William Gass
The Unbearable Heart / Kimiko Hahn
Girl
Hurt / E. J. Miller Laino
Native
Speaker / Chang-Rae Lee
Lies
My Teacher Told Me / James W. Loewen
One
by One from the Inside Out / Glenn Loury
Woman in Amber / Agate Nesaule
Palestine / Joe Sacco
Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution / Ron Sakolsky
and Fred Wei-Han Ho
Archipelago / Arthur Sze
Astoria / Robert Viscusi