Kate McKinnon Hosts 2024 National Book Awards: 'Writing a Book Is Nothing Short of an Act of Kindness'

Mar. 15, 2025

Host Kate McKinnon and fiction winner Percival Everett.Photo:Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty (2)

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty (2)

The winners of the 2024 National Book Awards have been announced, and some familiar names graced the stage.

Jon Batiste at the National Book Awards.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Two lifetime achievement awards were also presented at the ceremony:Barbara Kingsolverwas recognized with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters andW. Paul Coatesreceived the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.

“I wanted to be here because books do so many things. They inspire, they transport, they kill spiders when you can’t find a shoe,” McKinnon said in her opening address, after joking that she didn’t have the “necessary gravitas” to host the event.

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“Ultimately we tell stories because we want help. A book is an offering. It’s a hand in the darkness. A way of saying, ‘I know. Isn’t this crazy?’ And that’s something that a robot will never be able to do,” McKinnon continued. “Robots do not know what it is like to be certain you’re going to die one day. Robots do not experience racism or food insecurity. Robots do not lose their partners, weep over election results or receive a devastating diagnosis.”

David Levenson/Getty

During her acceptance speech, Kingsolver also spoke about the importance of books as a guiding force during times of hardship. “I’ve written through crises that seemed unsurvivable to me,” she said. “So I know that when everything goes dark, the sun’s still up there.”

“Artists get called a lot of dreamy things. We’re lighthouses, we’re visionaries. We are soothers of the savage beast maybe, but I think we’re at our best as disruptors, when we challenge the lazy belief that my best interests are everybody’s best interests,” Kingsolver continued. “We get to crack people open … We use our best, beautiful tricks to lure people into letting go of themselves for a little while so they can look into the soul of another human. Because that empathy, my friends, is our salvation. As James Baldwin told us, we are still each other’s only hope.”

Here’s which books and authors won in each category:

National Book Awards

In his acceptance speech, Everett noted that the enthusiasm for books in the room did give him some hope for the future before adding, “It’s important to remember, hope is a strategy.”

Everett’s other books,Dr. No, The Trees, Telephone, So Much Blue, ErasureandI Am Not Sidney Poitier,have also won and been nominated for a range of awards. Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, and lives in Los Angeles with his wife Danzy Senna.

When accepting his award, De León joked that his sons would be disappointed he didn’t get to hug McKinnon. The comedian then sprinted onstage and wrapped him in a bear hug. “See, if you manifest it, it will come,” the winner added.

De León is a professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies, and Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His earlier book,The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, won four awards since being published in 2015.

In addition to her work as a poet, Tuffaha is also an essayist and translator. She has published six books and is presently curating a series,Against Silence,forWords Without Bordersabout Palestinian writers.

Safadi has authored multiple picture books, includingThe Gift of Eid,and reviews Muslim books on her self-run Muslim Mommy Blog. A Syrian immigrant herself, she came to the United States at a young age and now lives near Chicago with her family.

source: people.com