Pemi Aguda’s short-story collection, Ghostroots, was nominated in the Fiction category of National Book Awards.
By Hope Ibiale
Nigerian writer, Pemi Aguda, has been longlisted for the 2024 National Book Awards. Aguda’s work, Ghostroots, was nominated in the Fiction category. Other longlisted authors in this category include Kaveh Akbar, Jessica Anthony, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Percival Everett, Miranda July, Rachel Kushner, Hisham Matar, Sam Sax, and Tony Tulathimutte.
The book award is divided into the Non-fiction category, Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, Fiction, and Poetry. The finalists for each category will be announced on October 1 and the overall winners will be announced on November 20 at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner. Each winner will receive a prize of $10,000, while each finalist will receive a prize of $1,000.
The judges for the Fiction category this year are Jamie Ford, the author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet; Lauren Groff, a three-time National Book Award Finalist for Fiction; Zeyn Joukhadar, the author of The Map of Salt and Stars; Chawa Magaña, the steward of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore; and Reginald McKnight, the author of He Sleeps.
While announcing on her X page, Aguda commented, “What? How? Reeling! So thankful! Thank you, thank you! The judges, my editors, Renee, every magazine that pubbed these stories! Unbelievable that Ghostroots is in such stellar company”.
Pemi Aguda is a Nigerian writer, architect, and podcast host. She has won awards like the Writivism Short Story Prize, the O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and many others. Her works have been published in Omenana Magazine, Kalahari Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and other places. She has also been shortlisted for the AKO 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing. Aguda’s book, Ghostroots, is her debut short story collection. Her next work, The Suicide Mothers, will be released soon.
The National Book Awards was created to celebrate the best literature published in the United States during the year of review. Check the full list of the longlisted authors here.