Chance the Rapper, Ann Patchett and Cristina Henríquez win 2024 Library Foundation awards

The Chicago Public Library Foundation on Tuesday announced its 2024 awards, with author Ann Patchett receiving the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, Cristina Henríquez the 21st Century Award and Chance the Rapper the winner of the Arts Award.

The theme for 2024 is Neverending Transformation, and CPLF president and CEO Brenda Langstraat Bui said the award winners were chosen because of their journeys with libraries during their lives.

“Neverending Transformation is a way for us to all come together,” Bui said, and to hear “the story of Chance the Rapper and what the Harold Washington Library means to him.” Patchett, whose most recent novel “Tom Lake” was published in 2023, is also a bookstore owner and advocate for libraries. “So Ann seems a natural choice for the Sandburg Award. And Cristina Henríquez, I’m reading ‘The Great Divide’ right now and as much as I love my day job, I can’t wait to go home tonight and keep reading it. The 21st Century honor is for the sort of author you haven’t heard from but, you’re about to.”

Bui said the awards are a way of telling the story of the Chicago Public Library and in doing so, lifting up all public libraries. The awards focus on closing the academic opportunity gap, activating creativity and connection, and bridging the digital divide through programming across the Chicago Public Library’s 81 branches.

A ceremony will take place on Oct. 30, broadcast on YouTube Nov. 2 with newscaster Bill Kurtis, a conversation with Patchett and NPR host Scott Simon, and remarks from Henríquez and Chance the Rapper.

We spoke with the 2024 honorees before Tuesday’s announcement. The following conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

Ann Patchett

Patchett is the author of nine novels and has won numerous awards in her writing career, including a PEN/Faulkner Award, a National Humanities Medal and the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize. Her work has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Nashville, Tennessee, resident is also an independent bookstore owner; as the winner of the 2024 Carl Sandburg Literary Award, she says Sandburg was one of her earliest literary loves.

Q: What did you want to be as little Ann?

A: I always say the only interesting thing about me is that I always knew what I wanted to do with my life. And I did it. If you were interviewing me, and I was 6, I would say, ‘I want to be a writer. It’s fascinating how often you’ll meet writers who will say, I knew that this is what I wanted to do from the very beginning. It’s not like people halfway through college sign up for pre-med. Sometimes it happens, but I think that a lot of us knew really early that this is what we wanted to do with our life.

I never even thought about success. I just thought, I want to make this art. The biggest dream I ever had was that someday I would be able to pay my bills by writing. And honestly, I never updated that. Low expectations are the secret to happiness and I always had very low expectations. I’ve been really happy and I’m still floored that this has worked out.

Q: As a bookstore owner, how do you feel about book banning across the nation?

A: It just gets me going. Because things are bad in Tennessee. We might as well be Florida, some days. Two of my books just got banned in Florida. But, my whole thing is guns. I feel like people ban books so they can say, ‘We’re the involved parents, we’re keeping kids safe from books.’ The number one killer of children is guns. What we should be talking about is banning guns. You’re going to ban a copy of “Madame Bovary” in order to keep the child safe, but you’re not going to enact a single common sense gun law? Then you’re just banning books, to have a puppet show, to make yourself feel useful. That’s how I feel about it. Nobody should be banning books, it’s the stupidest thing in the world. Let’s talk about keeping people safe.

Cristina Henríquez

Hinsdale resident Henríquez is recognized for her literary efforts with the 21st Century Award, which honors achievements by a creator with ties to Chicago. Her latest project, “The Great Divide,” is a fictional account of the building of the Panama Canal. Henríquez wrote her debut novel “The Book of Unknown Americans,” a New York Times Notable Book, at the Hinsdale Public Library. She said the award is a “huge validation.”

“I’m really so honored that it’s an award that’s connected with Chicago,” Henríquez said. “I went to Northwestern. I lived in Hyde Park for years after that. I worked at the University of Chicago Press. I now live in the western suburbs where I’ve been for 17 years. I love going to bookstores in Chicago and I feel connected to this as a place where I have been writing a lot of my work. … This award, it’s meaningful to me for that reason.”

Q: You wrote one of your books at the Hinsdale library. Do they love you there?

A: I hope so. They’re always very, very kind to me. I got to do an event there for “The Great Divide” during my tour, and that was such a highlight for me, to be able to go to my local library and have enough people register that we had to move the event to the main floor of the library. I felt super proud about that. They always seem very gracious and welcoming. My previous book, “The Book of Unknown Americans,” I wrote at my local library. Libraries are very near and dear to my heart.

For this newest book, “The Great Divide,” I was constantly pestering my local librarians and they helped me enormously with the research for this book, and it was years and years of research. So they were getting me lots of material. And I was always there picking it up and dropping things off and asking more questions. I couldn’t have done it without the librarians.

Q: Is Panama your muse? It’s a throughline in some of your books.

A: At this point, I think so. I started off writing stories, early in my career, when I first got to graduate school that were all set in the United States. And when I made the switch to start writing about Panama, which was a really big deal for me, because I had been going to Panama all my life, visiting all my family there. I hadn’t thought to write those stories down. I didn’t think that those were stories that anyone would care about.

When I finally decided to start writing stories that were set in Panama — partly because I had started reading Sandra Cisneros, whose work sort of gave me permission to move into a different direction — the reaction that I got about those stories and how much stronger those stories were told me everything that I needed to know. I had stumbled into my territory.

Chance the Rapper

Chancelor Bennett, aka Chance the Rapper, the Grammy Award-winning artist, songwriter, producer and social activist, is only the second musician to be honored with the CPLF’s Arts Award, behind Mavis Staples. Last year’s Arts Award winner was the late Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt. Bennett honed his skills and gave some of his earliest performances at the Harold Washington Library Center’s YOUmedia Lab (a digital media hands-on making and learning space for teens).

“To be mentioned in the same space as Richard Hunt is incredible,” Bennett said. “I try to be a pioneering Black artist in all spaces — in the musical space, the visual space, film and wherever else I can. I feel like the fact that all these people are a part of this award, that makes it all the more special to be thought of. When you hear names like Mavis Staples, Richard Hunt, that’s a very cool lineage to be a part of.”

Q: What does it mean to get this award now?

A: It is a really important time, especially in the age of misinformation and revised history. The library is kind of a stronghold for truth and history. The library, I feel a lot of people, that’s where they figure out they’re a reader, but for me it was where I figured out I was a writer. I was in a lot of programs at the library… when I was a kid, that was when they started the YouMedia program where you could come in and they had mentors and librarians that would tutor you with homework, but also offer alternative programming like production software classes, DJ-ing classes. The most important one for me was the open mic. I would do open mics they would have up there every other Wednesday and would just spend time in the space creating, being creative and documenting my outlook on life.

Q: Is there a question you wish reporters would ask?

A: Within the context of this interview and my upcoming album, I think some people would ask, “How did you become so radicalized, so alt when a lot of your music feels it’s a little bit softer or not as challenging as the newer works?” My response would be there are a lot of examples of me challenging the status quo or societal norms on my older projects, but it’s a little bit deeper on this one because I’ve grown and because I’m starting to recognize or understand better some of the lessons I was learning when I was younger.

When I was in YouMedia at the library, my favorite mentor was Mike Hawkins, or Brother Mike. He was this poet, activist, started the open mic program that we were all in and would give us advice. He told me one week, I would never get to perform again unless I did a new piece because I was getting complacent in performing this song that I knew everyone knew the words to and liked, He was like ‘it’s about creating new stuff, not getting in a comfort zone.’ He was the archetype of the politically-minded mentor, super smooth. He passed away when we were younger. A lot of stuff came out of me and the artists that he mentored like Vic Mensa, Nico Segal, Noname, Lucki Ecks, Mick Jenkins, a lot of the people that I grew up with were all under his guidance. He was always teaching us about our destinies as writers, we were poet laureates of our struggle, or whatever we represented, and that we would be fighters one day in what we write and how important it was that you wrote the truth and what we felt, and that we were empathetic of others, it was really deep. He was a very, very, very influential person. He was the architect. I feel like a lot of what I learned from him is what’s coming out in this project and in my writing.”