Whitehead won the fiction category because duh.
Colson Whitehead won the fiction category for The Underground Railroad because the sky is blue and birds sing. MADELINE WHITEHEAD

As if you needed any more reason to put Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad on the nightstand, yesterday the book won one of the highest literary honors in the country.

The narrative follows Cora, a slave who takes absolutely zero shit from anyone as she travels along a literal Underground Railroad in an attempt to escape her life of bondage. A cold, laser-focused slave-catcher named Ridgeway pursues her from state to state as she makes her way north.

Back in September, after Oprah and Obama had already praised the book, I said The Underground Railroad hummed along like a pot-boiler but hit like a classic. Now it's well on its way to becoming one. I don't know a books person who didn't expect Whitehead to win the award, and, in addition to the fact that more people will be turned on to this book, I'm glad at least one sure thing came to pass this year.

Cave Canem, an organization that supports Black writers, was honored with a Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. According to the NBA, this is the first time that award has ever been given to an organization. If you want to cry a lot right now, start this video at 26:30 and watch Terrance Hayes deliver his speech about the importance of Cave Canem to the poetry community:

Back in 2010, Hayes won an NBA in poetry for an incredible book called Lighthead. I also highly recommend an earlier effort of his, Wind in a Box.

Ibram X. Kendi won the nonfiction award for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Kendi will be reading in Seattle at University Bookstore on Dec. 1. Stranger Genius Nominee Robert Lashley is writing an essay about that book, maybe even at this very moment, so look for that in the Stranger in the days before Kendi's arrival.

Poetry Facebook/Twitter is blowing up with congratulations for Daniel Borzutzky, whose The Performance of Becoming Human won the prize for poetry this year. I haven't read the book yet, but I can tell you right now small presses around the nation are toasting to the fact that a book from Brooklyn Arts Press was even considered for such a big award. Hear, hear.

Finally, Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell won the prize for Young Peoples' Literature with their graphic novel trilogy about the civil rights movement, March: Book Three.