The 2016 Tournament of Books was presented by Field Notes, and that year’s Rooster went to The Sellout by Paul Beatty, who had this to say about the win:

A rooster is an appropriate prize for this book. The East Village Rooster is an endangered species. It would be nice to release this rooster into the wild. In the old days I could have maybe given the rooster to one of the Nuyorican cats down the block who run the community garden like an exclusive social club. There’s still one around somewhere. Roosters, I mean, though you could almost say the same thing about Puerto Ricans, given all the gentrification. Occasionally when I’m up late writing, I’ll hear the lone remaining rooster crow. There’s an owl, too. If the award was an owl, I could solve my rodent problem.

Although I can’t accept the rooster because I am incapable of caring for other living creatures, I still have some annoying questions. Is there a rooster-in-waiting? What happens to him if I don’t pick him? Why a rooster? Because winning the Tournament of Books is like winning a cockfight? There’s lots of cockfighting in The Day of the Locust. Anyway, I can’t tell you how honored I am to have won the Tournament of Books. Any competition that awards a rooster to the winner, knows what the fuck it’s doing. But Heifer (a favorite word, whose meaning I learned when I moved to West LA, as in “After school, I’m kicking that heifer’s ass”) International seems to be doing wonderful things with their livestock. My rooster would just sit here, unfed and un-salsa-music’d, going, “After school, I’m kicking this male-heifer’s ass. He ain’t no Nathanael West.”

So, thank you. This award means a lot to me. And if you happen to pass through the East Village in the late afternoon, you might hear me crowing.