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Zadie Smith, Anna Burns among winners of critics prizes

FILE - This Nov. 4, 2015 file photo shows Zadie Smith at the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards in New York. Smith won the the National Book Critics Circle criticism prize for her essay collection "Feel Free." (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK — Anna Burns’ “Milkman,” winner last fall of the Man Booker Prize, has been awarded the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction. Zadie Smith won the criticism prize for her essay collection “Feel Free.”

Steve Coll’s book on the CIA, “Directorate S,” was the nonfiction winner, and Nora Krug’s “Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home” received the award for autobiography. Others winners Thursday night included Ada Limón’s “The Carrying” for poetry and “Christopher Bonanos’ “Flash,” about the photographer Weegee, for biography.

Honorary prizes were presented to NPR critic Maureen Corrigan and Latino publisher Arte Publico. Tommy Orange’s acclaimed novel “There There” was named best debut book.

The critics circle was founded in 1974 and includes around 800 reviewers, authors, bloggers and others in the books community.

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press