The Harold Washington Literary Award recognizes diverse and stimulating authors who address issues of contemporary life and whose literary achievements include a significant body of work that has touched the public mind and imagination. Harold Washington, the first African-American mayor of the City of Chicago, revered literature and epitomized the diversity of the American experience. The award, which bears his name, celebrates this spirit. The goal of this award is to present examples to the public of creative uses of the written word.

Recipients of this prestigious award are selected by a cross-cultural committee of representatives from Chicago’s literary community.

This award has been given annually since 1989 by Near South Planning Board at the Harold Washington Literary Award Dinner.

2024 Honoree: Tracy K. Smith

Having served as US Poet Laureate from 2017-19, Tracy K. Smith is the author of five books of poetry: Such Color: New and Selected Poems; Wade in the Water, winner of the 2019 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry; Life on Mars, which received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, recipient of the 2006 James Laughlin Award, and The Body’s Question, which won the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

For more information on Tracy K. Smith, please visit www.tracyksmith.com

Past Recipients of the HWLA

Isabel Wilkerson (2023)

Natasha Tretheway (2022)

Ta-Nehisi Coates (2021)

Alex Kotlowitz (2019)

Rabih Alameddine (2018)

Rita Dove (2017)
Marilynne Robinson (2016)
Edward P. Jones (2015)
Stuart Dybek (2014)
Art Spiegelman (2013)
Sara Paretsky (2012)
Edwidge Danticat (2011)
Barbara Ehrenreich (2010)
Dave Eggers (2009)
Scott Turow (2008)
Walter Mosley (2007)
E.L. Doctorow (2006)
Garrison Keillor (2005)
Jules Feiffer (2004)
Margaret Atwood (2003)
Grace Paley (2002)
August Wilson (2001)
John Hope Franklin (2000)
Robert Pinsky (1999)
Joseph Epstein (1998)
Cynthia Ozick (1997)
Isabel Allende (1996)
Doris Kearns Goodwin (1995)
Zbigniew Brzezinski (1994)
Garry Wills (1993)
Ralph Ellison (1992)
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1991)
Saul Bellow, Ray Bradbury, Gwendolyn Brooks, Cyrus Colter, William
Maxwell, Studs Terkel (1990)
Susan Sontag (1989)