Eliminating barriers for emerging writers

Prolific author and social critic Roxane Gay, who is writing a sexy novel with Channing Tatum, to be honored at National Book Awards

- BY LEIGH HABER

DAVID BUTOW For The Times ROXANE GAY, the author of "bad feminist" and "Hungry" and a booster of other writers, will receive the Literarian Award.

Roxane Gay is a risk-taker. The author and cultural critic is unafraid to label herself a "bad feminist" — the title of her 2014 essay collection — or admit on national TV that, despite being a progressive, she owns a gun. She famously wrote about her complex relationship with food and her own body in her searing 2017 memoir, "Hunger," a no-holds-barred exploration of how she became "super morbidly obese" and the accompanying shame she felt; at her heaviest, she weighed 577 pounds. Both books were critically acclaimed bestsellers, and established Gay as a literary lodestar.

But that's not why the National Book Foundation is bestowing its 2025 Literarian Award on her later this year. Gay will receive the lifetime achievement honor Nov. 19 at the organization's National Book Awards ceremony in recognition of service to the literary community through efforts including the Audacity newsletter, the Rumpus literary magazine (co-owned by Gay and her wife, Debbie Millman, since May) and advocacy for underrepresented and emerging writers alongside her own writing for the New York Times.

The annual honor, which comes with a $10,000 prize, puts Gay in the company of luminaries such as Maya Angelou, Terry Gross and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as to lesser-known booksellers and independent publishers. Gay "has intentionally and artfully carved out spaces to create opportunities for writers, readers, and emerging publishing professionals of all backgrounds," says David Steinberger, chair of the National Book Foundation's board. “We will continue to reap the benefit of her achievements for generations,” he predicts.