92nd Annual California Book Awards

Since 1931, the California Book Awards have honored the exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers. Each year a select jury considers hundreds of books from around the state in search of the very best in literary achievement. 

Over its nine decades, the California Book Awards have honored the writers who have come to define California to the world. Among them are John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner, MFK Fisher, Thom Gunn, Richard Rodriquez, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joan Didion, Ishmael Reed, and Amy Tan. Recent award winners include Hector Tobar, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Susan Orlean, Rachel Kushner, Rachel Khong, Tommy Orange, Morgan Parker and Steph Cha.

This year’s winners include:

Gold Medals

Juvenile:
Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration, by Elizabeth Partridge and Illustrated by Lauren Tamaki (Chronicle Books)

Poetry:
Time Regime: Poems, by Jhani Randhawa (Gaudy Boy)