Lemony Snicket apologizes for racist joke about black writer at National Book Awards

The children’s author Daniel Handler has apologized for an “ill-conceived” joke he made about the black American writer Jacqueline Woodson while hosting the National Book Awards.

When Woodson collected her prize for young people’s literature, Handler, who writes as Lemony Snicket, joked about her being allergic to watermelon.

“My job at last night’s National Book Awards #NBAwards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I’m sorry,” Handler said on Twitter.

Woodson won her award for Brown Girl Dreaming, a poetic memoir about growing up in South Carolina and New York in the 1960s and 70s, and coming to an awareness of the civil-rights movement. She was the only non-white finalist in the category.

After she ended her acceptance speech, Handler returned to the stage.

“I said that if she won I would tell all of you something I learned about her this summer. Jackie Woodson is allergic to watermelon. Just let that sink in your minds,” he said. “I said, ‘You have to put that in a book.’ And she said, ‘You put that in a book.’ And I said, ‘I’m only writing a book about a black girl who’s allergic to watermelon if you, Cornel West, Toni Morrison and Barack Obama say, ‘This guy’s OK.’”

After a few jittery laughs from the audience, Handler added: “We’ll talk about it later.”

David Perry, who blogs on language, power and privilege, called on Handler to apologise for telling a joke about watermelon, an image fraught with racist history, during a moment that marked the height of Woodson’s literary achievement.

“For a powerful white author to make a watermelon joke when handing out an award to a black author, the message is - no matter what you write, no matter what you do, no matter what you accomplish, you will always be a BLACK author, not just an author,” Perry wrote.

Though Perry doesn’t believe this was Handler’s intention, unfortunately, he wrote, it was the effect.

Others criticised Handler’s joke on Twitter.

(Roxane Gay is a columnist for the Guardian.)

Earlier in the evening, Handler also joked about not yet receiving a Coretta Scott King Award, a prize given to black writers of young-adult fiction.

Handler’s publicist Lauren Cerand said: “Daniel is not doing any interviews today.” Woodson’s publicist said the author is not commenting at this time.

Acclaimed educator and writer Sharon Draper, chair of the National Book Awards Young People’s Literature committee, presented the prize to Woodson. She said of selecting the winner: “When we made our decision, it was unanimous.”

This was Woodson’s third nomination for a National Book Award. She was a finalist for the prize in 2002 for Hush and in 2003 for Locomotion.

During her acceptance speech, Woodson said: “Thank you for your love of books and thank you for changing the world.”