A majority of this year’s finalists at the national book awards made a collective statement calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war at the ceremony in New York on Thursday, amid a storm behind the scenes as sponsors pulled out in anticipation.
Twenty of the 25 finalists up for the five categories – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s literature and translated literature – got on stage as author Aaliyah Bilal, nominated in the fiction category for her novel Temple Folk, read out the prepared statement.
