New York, New York - Tess Gunty's debut novel The Rabbit Hutch won the National Book Award for fiction as speakers at the ceremony discussed the impact of book banning and the importance of being exposed to different stories.

The 73rd National Book Awards were presented at a dinner benefit for the National Book Foundation on Wednesday night. The ceremony took place in person for the first time since 2019.

The event, hosted by bestselling author and TV personality Padma Lakshmi, also featured taped introductions for the nominees from celebrities like Alicia Keys, Jimmy Fallon, and Keanu Reeves.

Thirty-year-old Tess Gunty was the star of the night after winning the National Book Award for fiction. She said she was so shocked she didn't even prepare a speech. Upon accepting the award, she thanked the other shorted-listed fiction writers for "putting their work into the world" and "humanizing experiences that aren't normally visible."

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The other 2022 prizes went to Imani Perry’s South to America for nonfiction, Sabaa Tahir’s All My Rage for young people’s literature, John Keene's Punks: New and Selected Poems for poetry, and Argentine-Spanish language author Samanta Schweblin and translator Megan McDowell's Seven Empty Houses for best work in translation. Each of the winners received $10,000.

Two other awards were presented at the event Wednesday night. Tracie D. Hall, executive director of the American Library Association, was honored with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.

In her speech, Hall thanked those who introduced her to reading, specifically her grandmother, who let her bring home all the books they could carry from the local library.

But in light of how politicalized reading has become and the recent raise in book bans, she dedicated her win to her fellow stewards of literature: "Librarians, who in resisting censorship efforts have sacrificed their jobs and their livelihood to ensure that every reader, had the chance to see themselves represented on a bookshelf and their lived experience validated."

Author Neil Gaiman, who presented his friend, Art Spiegelman, with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, also brought up book banning.

Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Maus was banned (again) in both Missouri and Tennessee in 2022.

Gaiman said there's only one kind of person who would ban a book that tells the harrowing tale of Spiegelman's family during the Holocaust: those who didn't want it to exist in the first place – in 1942.

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Spiegelman, who is the first graphic artist to be given this honor, joked in his rye speech that by giving him this award, the name would need to change to "letters and emojis."

Spiegelman shared that he didn't write Maus to teach anyone anything and that he wasn't trying to write "Auschwitz for beginners." He wrote the story because he was trying to understand "how [he] got on to this planet with two parents who were supposed to be dead long before [he] got here."

He added that despite the bans, the award will once again make his unlikely hit a blockbuster again.

Striking HarperCollins workers outside the award event handed out leaflets and buttons outlining their differences with the publisher amid their ongoing fight for a fair contract.

The strike began last week after around 250 employees walked out at HarperCollins, the only major New York publisher with a union.

Lakshmi and others at the event wore buttons passed out by the striking workers at the event to show their support, which the union celebrated on Twitter.

The winner of the nonfiction prize, Imani Perry, is a HarperCollins author. She made no references to the strike in her speech, though she noted that those who "walk the picket line" were among her inspirations.