Axiomatic a Finalist for NBCC Award

On Saturday, January 11, the board of the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2019 award, including Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin for Criticism.

Drawing on nine years of research, Axiomatic explores the ways we understand the traumas we inherit and the systems that sustain them. In five sections―each one built on an axiom about how the past affects the present―Tumarkin weaves together true and intimate stories of a community dealing with the extended aftermath of a suicide, a grandmother’s quest to kidnap her grandson to keep him safe, one community lawyer’s struggle inside and against the criminal justice system, a larger-than-life Holocaust survivor, and the history of the author’s longest friendship. With verve, wit, and critical dexterity, Tumarkin asks questions about loss, grief, and how our particular histories inform the people we become in the world. 

Other titles nominated for Criticism include Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib (University of Texas Press), Essays One by Lydia Davis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman (W.W. Norton), and Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 by Peter Schjeldahl (Abrams).

The winners will be announced at a celebration on March 12 in New York. A full list of the finalists can be found on the NBCC Blog.