Hanif Abdurraqib

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. Abdurraqib’s 2021, A Little Devil in America, was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first full-length poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Abdurraqib’s first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a book of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was long-listed for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune for Your Disaster, won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.

Abdurraqib’s 2024 book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, is a poignant, personal reflection on basketball, talent, and allegiance, and of course, LeBron James.

Abdurraqib is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.