Claudia Rankine, the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College in Claremont, California, is one of five finalists for the National Book Award in the poetry category. The National Book Award winners will be announced on November 19.
Professor Rankine is being honored for her book Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014). Rankine’s poetry recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Citizen is her fifth published poetry collection.
Professor Rankine is a native of Jamaica. She is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and holds a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Columbia University.
