Paisley Rekdal Named Recipient of Spalding’s 2026 Peace and Justice in Literature Award

Paisley Rekdal’s poetry collection West: A Translation has won the 2026 Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature, an honor awarded by the Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University.

Rekdal will receive the award and give a public presentation at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, at The Brown Hotel, 335 W. Broadway, Louisville. The event is presented by the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and the Louisville Free Public Library.

In announcing the award, Kathleen Driskell, chair of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing, praised the collection’s originality and relevance.

“We are delighted to award the 2026 Spalding Prize to West: A Translation, a one-of-a-kind poetry collection written by highly awarded poet, writer, and teacher Paisley Rekdal,” Driskell said. “West features documentary, persona, and lyric poems that commemorate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the U.S.’s transcontinental railroad. It also includes poems and essays focusing on the mistreatment of Chinese trying to immigrate through Angel Island to the United States, a timely subject for all Americans.”

West: A Translation was written after Rekdal was commissioned by the Spike 150 Foundation to create a book commemorating the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The collection centers on the experiences of the 10,000 to 15,000 Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads between 1864 and 1869. It also addresses the Chinese Exclusion Act and the harsh treatment many Chinese immigrants endured at the Angel Island Immigration Center, where detainees were often held, interrogated, and isolated for months.

Established in 2019, the Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature honors exceptional literary works that exemplify Spalding University’s mission.