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In 2020, the Kansas City Public Library established the Maya Angelou Book Award with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, and Northwest Missouri State, Truman State, and Southeast Missouri State universities.
Angelou was an acclaimed, Missouri-born memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist, and the prize celebrates contemporary writers whose work demonstrates a commitment to social justice. The award alternates annually between poetry and fiction.
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2021 | Poetry
Moving between English and Arabic, The Wild Fox of Yemen examines the life of a young Muslim woman in New York, half a world away from her roots in Yemen. Almontaser describes it as a love letter to her home country and the people of Yemen.
2022 | Fiction
An Ordinary Wonder is about a Nigerian boy’s secret intersex identity and his desire to live as a girl, “highlights the limiting dangers of the gender binary, while also reminding us of the power storytelling has to help us envision a more expansive and inclusive world.”