Craig Santos Perez, an associate professor of English at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has won the 2015 American Book Award for his third book, "from unincorporated territory [guma’]," a collection of poetry and prose published by Omnidawn in 2014. Perez told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser he was grateful and surprised to be among the 14 writers selected to receive the award.
"I didn’t have much time to promote the book last year because my daughter was born in April, the same month it came out," he said. Nevertheless, "from unincorporated territory [guma’]" was named one of Library Journal’s best books of 2014 and received a glowing review from Publishers Weekly, which called it "a haunting, forceful testament to a legacy of militarization, cultural hegemony and resistance."
A native Chamorro born and raised on Guam, Perez moved to California with his family in 1995 and came to Hawaii in 2010. One of the lighter pieces in the often heart-rending book celebrates his Hawaiian wife and canned meat: "She seduced me with breakfasts of Corned Beef Hash, hapa rice, and two eggs (any style)."
Other 2015 winners include Naomi Klein for "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate," Laila Lalami for "The Moor’s Account" and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz for "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States."
Previous winners of the award, which is given without ranking or categories, include Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Sherman Alexie, Chang-rae Lee, Toni Morrison and Hawaii author Lois-Ann Yamanaka.
Administered by the Before Columbus Foundation in Oakland, Calif., the American Book Awards "were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community," the foundation stated in its announcement. Perez and his fellow winners will be formally recognized Oct. 25 at an event in San Francisco.
