Jessica Hagedorn, R.F. Kuang among winners of American Book Awards, which celebrate multiculturalism

NEW YORK — Author-playwright Jessica Hagedorn, “Yellowface” novelist RF Kuang and poet Monica Youn are among the recipients of this year’s 45th annual American Book Awards, which honor “exceptional literary achievements from across the spectrum” of the country’s artistic and cultural community.

The awards were announced Monday by the non-profit organization Before the Columbus Foundation, which Ishmael Reed helped found it in 1976 as a way to promote multicultural literature.

In the foundation’s diverse spirit, winners have ranged from the late Rabbi Michael Lerner, longtime editor of the progressive magazine Tikkun, to Latin American poet and performance artist Paul S. Flores and recent University of Southern California graduate Asna Tabassum, whose valedictory speech was canceled by the school last spring over concerns about her support for the Palestinians.

Kuang’s “Yellowface,” a bestselling satire on book publishing, was among several contemporary works cited. Other works cited included Youn’s poetry collection “From From,” Flores’ “We Still Be: Poems and Performances,” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “Independence: A Novel,” Debra Magpie Earling’s “The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel,” and Barbara D. Savage’s “Merze Tate: The Global Odyssey of a Black Woman Scholar.”

Hagedorn, whose books include the 1990 novel “Dogeaters,” and Lerner, who died last month at 81, have both been praised for their bodies of work. Tabassum won an anti-censorship award, and recipients of critical awards have included Mehdi Hasan’s “Zeteo” and Lynnée Denise’s “Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters.”