Everett's novel James is a retelling of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The prestigious literary prize also awards the best in non-fiction, poetry, translated literature and young people's literature.

(Image credit: Dimitrios Kambouris)

Photos of a father and his young daughter, drowned in the Rio Grande, underlined the deadly risks of the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Martín Espada drew on them for his book Floaters.

(Image credit: Verónica G. Cárdenas)

The new prize will consider both fiction and nonfiction translated into English and published in the U.S. It's the first addition to the National Book Foundation's annual slate in over two decades.

The author's books are set in the poor, black Mississippi community where she grew up, a place where, she says, "the past bears very heavily on the present."

The National Book Award-winning novelist was perhaps best known for Jesus' Son, a book of interwoven stories focused on the lives of addicts. A spokesman for his publisher tells NPR he died Wednesday.

(Image credit: Cindy Johnson)