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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/22\/opinion\/national-book-awards-dei.html?emc=edit_nn_20260922&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226865",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOpinionSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTBret StephensThe Literary World\u2019s D.E.I. ChecklistSept. 22, 2026, 5:03 a.m. ETCredit...Tamara Porras for The New York TimesListen \u00b7 6:50 min Share full articleBy Bret StephensOpinion ColumnistSee more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google Last week, the longlists for the National Book Awards were announced. Among the 20 authors in the fiction and nonfiction categories, nearly all are straight white males. Most are also on the political right, some even on the far right. Remarkably, mainstream media outlets haven\u2019t reported this, perhaps because they don\u2019t think it\u2019s noteworthy. It\u2019s as if we were living in 1956 rather than 2026.If you\u2019re scratching your head at this \u201cnews,\u201d well, it\u2019s because I made it up. Or rather, I inverted the particulars about the authors\u2019 identities and their political views to make a point: If today, as a reader, you recoil at the thought of a time in which minorities were systematically marginalized when it came to the literary world\u2019s public honors (and so much else), shouldn\u2019t you also recoil now that the tables have been almost completely turned? And if you object to the right\u2019s efforts to politicize the arts, won\u2019t you also object when the efforts come from the left?For a sense of what I mean, let\u2019s walk through the National Book Foundation\u2019s announcement of the longlist for fiction, 10 books selected out of 451 titles submitted by publishers.Hannah Lillith Assadi\u2019s novel, \u201cParadiso 17,\u201d is \u201cinspired by the life of her late Palestinian father.\u201d Kimberly Blaeser, a poet, is the \u201cfounding director of Indigenous Nations Poets.\u201d Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer whose novel \u201cD\u00e8y\u201d reflects on \u201cthe many forms of mourning experienced through immigration, gentrification and diasporic identity.\u201d Juli\u00e1n Delgado Lopera\u2019s novel \u201cPretend You\u2019re Dead and I Carry You,\u201d set in 1990s Bogot\u00e1, \u201cexplores Colombia\u2019s queer underground community.\u201d Louise Erdrich, the highly acclaimed author of \u201cPython\u2019s Kiss,\u201d is identified in her N.B.F. biography as \u201ca member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.\u201d Marlon James\u2019s novel \u201cThe Disappearers\u201d is a \u201cqueer epic\u201d set in Kingston, Jamaica. Valeria Luiselli is a writer born in Mexico whose \u201cBeginning Middle End\u201d spans \u201ccontinents, languages and four generations.\u201d Kenan Orhan is a Turkish American writer; his first novel, \u201cThe Renovation,\u201d is a story about a family migrating from Istanbul to Italy. Morgan Thomas\u2019s book \u201cMad Eden\u201d is about \u201ca trans health care worker\u201d who has been diagnosed with autism.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOh, there\u2019s also Alexander Maksik\u2019s novel \u201cPassengers,\u201d a father-daughter story set in an airport. Maksik, who is Jewish, is, to my knowledge, white, male and straight \u2014 details that, in a sane world, should have no bearing on whether his book deserves to make the longlist. In this world, sadly, it makes him the lucky token.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.Then there\u2019s the longlist for nonfiction. Much of the same in terms of subject matter: There\u2019s a book about \u201cthe rise of Islamophobia in America.\u201d Another about \u201can experiment in queer parenthood.\u201d A third that\u2019s \u201can argument against white paint.\u201d (Really.) Last year\u2019s nonfiction winner was a screed about the war in Gaza born of a viral anti-Israel social media post written weeks after Oct. 7.That book aside, one needn\u2019t get into an argument about the quality of many of these works \u2014 at least a few of which, like James\u2019s \u201cThe Disappearers,\u201d are first-rate works of literature. But there\u2019s no mistaking the identitarian drift and ideological leanings in the prize\u2019s elevation of the authors and their themes.This isn\u2019t new. By my count, in the past decade, nine of the 10 winners of the National Book Award for fiction belonged to a minority group. In the nonfiction category, 10 of 10. Bluntly, the National Book Award has become a D.E.I. checklist: Only authors with preferred identities, preferred topics and preferred politics stand any realistic chance of winning.Much the same goes for the Pulitzer Prizes. Of the past 10 years\u2019 worth of winners for music and drama, nearly all have been minorities. Whether or not the winners are themselves minorities, they almost invariably win for work about minorities. For the prize in history, Kathleen DuVal won in 2025 for her history of Native American nations; Jacqueline Jones in 2024 for her account of Black workers in Boston during the Civil War; Jefferson Cowie in 2023 for his examination of white supremacy in an Alabama county in the 19th and 20th centuries; W. Caleb McDaniel in 2020 for his story of a former slave\u2019s fight for justice in post-Civil War America; David Blight in 2019 for his biography of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThese are undoubtedly fine books. Are there no other subjects?One common retort is that until recently, the prizes tended to neglect the experiences of minority groups. In fact, that hasn\u2019t been true for decades; what makes the last decade different is the obsessiveness when it comes to matters of race. A second is that since, for so many years, relatively few minority writers won major literary prizes, the more recent spate of accolades amounts to a form of reparations.Maybe. But as an old friend of mine liked to say, turning the tables isn\u2019t the same thing as achieving justice. And the bald politicization of the nation\u2019s highest literary prizes is achieving several forms of injustice at once.It is devaluing the prizes themselves. The National Book Awards are no longer national in any meaningful sense; at best, they represent the recondite tastes of that fraction of the country for whom white paint really might be problematic. The Pulitzers, too, will rapidly lose altitude if they can find no other subjects worth honoring beyond race.It is deforming and hollowing out literary culture in America. Writers or scholars whose subjects or views don\u2019t fit the preferences of prize givers will pay a price for their intellectual independence \u2014 the very thing a healthy literary culture ought to reward, not penalize. Others, as The Atlantic\u2019s Tyler Austin Harper noted this year, will twist themselves into ideological knots for the sake of currying favor and funding. Still others, not keen on careers of penury and oblivion, will never become writers or scholars in the first place.And it is turning off a generation of readers hungry for literature judged only on the merits of the work itself, regardless of the identity of the author and free from the tedium of political orthodoxy. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.\u201d I found that quotation, attributed to Ray Bradbury, on the Pulitzers\u2019 webpage. The arbiters of today\u2019s literary culture should think that one over carefully.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We\u2019d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here\u2019s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-22T09:03:25+00:00",
    "author_name": "Bret Stephens",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
    "section": "Opinion",
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    "ai_headline": "The Literary World\u2019s D.E.I. Checklist",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Bret Stephens Criticizes Literary World's DEI Checklist",
    "ai_excerpt": "Bret Stephens argues that major literary awards like the National Book Awards and Pulitzer Prizes have become overly focused on identity politics and diversity, equity, and inclusion (D.E.I.) criteria. He contends this trend devalues the awards, deforms literary culture, and alienates readers.",
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