Gene Lianyang
Last month, World Literature Today named Gene Luen Yang the winner of the 2023 NSK Neustadt Children’s and Youth Literature Prize. He was the first graphic novelist to receive the award.
Award-winning comics writer and artist Trung Le Nguyen nominated Yang and selected “American Born Chinese” as the representative text read by the jury.
“Chinese-Americans” cleverly handle immigration [and] Internalizing racism as if believing that very young readers have the ability to synthesize diverse and complex forms of written communication,” Nguyen wrote in his nomination statement.
The Blue Ribbon jury selects finalists and winners based solely on literary merit and the importance of the writer’s contribution to children’s and young people’s literature. NSK winners will receive $35,000, a silver medal and a certificate of recognition.
