News Article
Craig Santos Perez F’20 Wins 2023 National Book Award
![Photo of Craig Santos Perez and the cover of his book, from unincorporated territory [åmot], on a green background](https://www.acls.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Craig-Perez-NBA-2023-700x394.png)
ACLS congratulates Craig Santos Perez F’20, Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow, on winning the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry for his book from unincorporated territory [åmot].
from unincorporated territory [åmot] (Omnidawn Publishing) is the fifth collection in Perez’s ongoing series about the history of his homeland, the western Pacific island of Guåhan (Guam), and the culture of his Indigenous Chamoru people. According to Omnidawn, “Through experimental and visual poetry, Perez explores how storytelling can become a symbolic form of åmot, offering healing from the traumas of colonialism, militarism, migration, environmental injustice, and the death of elders.”
When I started writing, my mission was to inspire the next generation of Pacific Islanders. Craig Santos Perez
Craig Santos Perez F’20 is a Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, where he teaches creative writing, eco-poetry, and Pacific literature. He was awarded a 2020 Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellowship for the project “Climate Change, Environmental Poetry, and the Public Humanities in Hawaiʻi,” partnering with the Pacific Writers’ Connection.
This year, Evie Shockley F’07 was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry, and Viet Thanh Nguyen F’11 was longlisted in the fiction category.
