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 One of the nation鈥檚 most prestigious literary prizes announced its winners Monday. The Cleveland-based are the only national, juried prizes for literature that confronts racism and explores diversity.

Karen Long, manager of the book awards at the shared her thoughts about this year鈥檚 four winners with ideastream鈥檚 Dan Polletta

Ilya Kaminsky [Anisfield-Wolf]

Ilya Kaminsky- 鈥淒eaf Republic鈥�- Poetry

Born in Odessa in 1977, a Soviet doctor misdiagnosed the four-year-old boy鈥檚 case of mumps as a cold. This error left , whose family won political asylum to the United States in the early 1990s, hard-of-hearing. Long said while Kaminsky鈥檚 hearing problems are central to his work, they have not proved to be limiting.

Kaminsky鈥檚 collection of poems, 鈥�  which Long likened to a play, is a story in two parts about an unnamed town during a time of political unrest. Authorities shoot a young boy in the public square, and the people of the town become deaf and mount an insurrection using sign language.

Namwali Serpell [Peg Skorpinski/Anisfield-Wolf]

Namwali Serpell- 鈥淭he Old Drift鈥�- Fiction

Serpell, a native of Zambia, makes her home in San Francisco where she is a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.   which is Serpell鈥檚 first book, intertwines the stories of three families in Zambia over three generations.

Long called it 鈥渢he great novel about Zambia that you didn鈥檛 know you needed.鈥�

鈥淭he 566 pages read quickly. One of the profound things that Serpell does is she centers the story on Zambia and people coming to it so that it inverts the way Westerners tend to think about countries in Africa,鈥� Long said.

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Charles King [Miriam Lomaskin/Anisfield-Wolf]

Charles King- 鈥淕ods of the Upper Air鈥�- Nonfiction.

, is the author of several books. 鈥�  examines the stories of a group of early 20 ^th century researchers who challenged the notion that place of birth and ancestral genes determined both an individual鈥檚 makeup as well as character. This widely-held belief led to proclamations about which races were superior or inferior.

Long felt one of the delights of the book is that the researchers who are chronicled will be well-known to many readers, ranging from Margaret Mead to Anisfield-Wolf winner Zora Neale Hurston, whom Long described as 鈥渁nthropologist of the first order, a pioneer, even though most of us think of her now as a fiction writer.鈥�

Eric Foner [Erin Sibler Photography/Anisfield-Wolf]

Eric Foner- Lifetime Achievement Winner

is one of the nation鈥檚 foremost scholars on the Reconstruction period. Foner鈥檚 latest book, 鈥� calls into question that those who championed Reconstruction following the Civil War were carpetbaggers and inept African-Americans.

鈥淭his was a period that had been whitewashed by the movies and the writings of the time with (the film) 鈥楤irth of a Nation鈥� being 鈥榚xhibit A. With most careful scholarship, what Foner did is write the great book of Reconstruction that reset the table and the understanding that the questions battled over during Reconstruction, like 鈥榳ho can vote, who is a citizen, are you a citizen by birth,鈥� are very things we continue to debate in 2020,鈥� Long said.

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony will take place October 1 in Playhouse Square鈥檚 Connor Palace Theatre.