The Book Prize Index

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

Hanif Abdurraqib

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A sweeping, genre-bending “masterpiece” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) exploring Black art, music, and culture in all their glory and complexity—from Soul Train, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Whitney Houston, and Beyoncé ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Dallas Morning News, Publishers Weekly “Gorgeous essays that reveal the resilience, heartbreak, and joy within Black performance.”—Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.”

Arts & CriticismArts & Criticism · medium confidenceArts & Criticism81 signalsLlm Classifier: Arts & Criticism -> Arts & CriticismOpen Library: African americans in the performing arts -> Race & EthnicityOpen Library: American literature, african american authors, history and criticism -> Race & EthnicityBlack History & CultureArt, Music & PerformanceActivist BiographyAfrica & the African Diaspora

Award History

1 wins · 4 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor2022WinnerOfficial source
National Book Award for NonfictionMajor2021FinalistSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and AutobiographyMajor2021FinalistSecondary source
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay2022FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (4)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Aretha Franklin50%
    • James Brown45%
    • Beyoncé40%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.