The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize Honors Explorations of Community

We’re Looking for the Best Nonfiction Books on Human Connection

Since 2011, Zócalo Public Square’s annual book prize has recognized the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. Zócalo is grateful to screenwriter and philanthropist Tim Disney for his continuing sponsorship of our literary prize program, which also includes the Zócalo Poetry Prize.

Our mission is to connect people to ideas and to each other, which is why we have honored authors who explore these themes for over a dozen years now. Whether it’s a public …

September 8, 2022

Where I Go: The Best Basketball Court in Lisbon

At Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, There’s Only One Shared Language, and Everyone Is Welcome

by Jeremy Klemin | April 14, 2022

When I arrived in Lisbon in late 2016, I was in the best basketball shape of my life. I had just finished a master’s degree in Scotland, where I had …

Why I Drove 80 Miles Across Southern California on Surface Streets

The Road to the Inland Empire Is Paved With Good Memories—And Gratitude for Freeways

by Joe Mathews | January 4, 2022

Don’t ever complain about freeway traffic, especially around my mother.

“You’re lucky to have freeways—when I was a kid, we didn’t have freeways,” she used to say.

But that didn’t stop my …

Theater Understands Your Holiday Dinner Angst

Family Tables, Real and Imagined, Serve Up 'Birthrights, Grudges, Feuds, Illicit Unions, and Deeply Buried Secrets'

by Oliver Mayer | December 23, 2021

This is the time of year when families come together, crossing county and state lines and national borders, traversing bodies of water and mountain ranges that made cannibals of our …

The 2022 Zócalo Book Prize Celebrates Human Connectedness

For 12 Years, We Have Honored Excellence in Nonfiction Exploring Community and Social Cohesion

September 17, 2021

Where I Go: The Geology of Memory | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: The Headlands of Yehliu

It Took Me 20 Years and Five Visits to Develop My Own Relationship to Taiwan

by Shin Yu Pai | September 15, 2021

I was hiking the Port Orford Heads State Park on the coast of Southern Oregon this summer when I realized how closely the rock formations and coastline resemble the rugged …

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