Percival Everett won the National Book Award – one of the United States' most prestigious literary awards – for his novel "James", a kind of reworking of Mark Twain's classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".
Swedish Linnea Axelsson went home empty-handed from the award ceremony. Her poetry collection "Ædnan" was nominated in the category "translated literature", but instead Yang Shuang-zi's "Taiwan Travelogue" won in translation from Mandarin by Lin King.
In the category for non-fiction books, Jason De León's "Soldiers and kings: Survival and hope in the world of human smuggling" took home the victory.
