Emily Raboteau, professor of English at the City College of New York, has won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in Oakland, California. She will receive the award in late October in San Francisco.
Professor Raboteau is being honored for her work of creative nonfiction entitled, Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013). In this work she describes her 10-year journey through Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana, and the American South to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of Black Zionists, people who yearn to find a place where they are able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Professor Raboteau is a graduate of Yale University and holds a master of fine arts degree from New York University. Her father is Albert Raboteau, a scholar of African American religion who is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion Emeritus at Princeton University. Emily Raboteau is also the author of the novel The Professor’s Daughter (Picador, 2006).