Here are the 50 nominees for this year's National Book Awards
The nominees for the biggest award in books are in.
Over the past week, the National Book Foundation has announced the longlists for each of the five National Book Award categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, and Poetry. These recognize the best in 2019 American books. Next month, the lists will be halved to recognize the 25 finalists, and the awards will be held in New York in November.
In Fiction, several debut novels are recognized including Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips, and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. They’re placed alongside past award-winning heavyweights: Pulitzer Prize finalists Laila Lalami and Susan Choi; Booker Prize winner Marlon James; and Colson Whitehead, whose last novel The Underground Railroad won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
The eclectic mix in Nonfiction represents rigorous reportage, such as Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, as well as introspective memoir. Among YA candidates, Laurie Halse Anderson stands out; the beloved Speak author made an acclaimed return to form with her poetic memoir SHOUT. And in Translated Literature, Olga Tokarczuk makes the Top 10 for the second year in a row (and in as many years as the category has existed): Last year, she was cited for Flights, which was one of EW’s Best Books of 2018, and now returns for Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Check out the full lists below.
FICTION
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble
Random House / Penguin Random HouseSusan Choi, Trust Exercise
Henry Holt & Company / Macmillan PublishersKali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Corina: Stories
One World / Penguin Random HouseMarlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random HouseLaila Lalami, The Other Americans
Pantheon Books / Penguin Random HouseKimberly King Parsons, Black Light: Stories
Vintage / Penguin Random HouseHelen Phillips, The Need
Simon & SchusterJulia Phillips, Disappearing Earth
Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random HouseOcean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Penguin Press / Penguin Random HouseColson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
Doubleday / Penguin Random House
NONFICTION
Hanif Abdurraqib, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
University of Texas PressSarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
Grove Press / Grove AtlanticTressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays
The New PressCarolyn Forché, What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
Penguin Press / Penguin Random HouseGreg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Metropolitan Books / Macmillan PublishersPatrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Doubleday / Penguin Random HouseIliana Regan, Burn the Place: A Memoir
Agate Midway / Agate Publishing, Inc.Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
The University of North Carolina PressDavid Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random HouseAlbert Woodfox with Leslie George, Solitary
Grove Press / Grove Atlantic
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
Kwame Alexander; illustrations by Kadir Nelson, The Undefeated
Versify / Houghton Mifflin HarcourtLaurie Halse Anderson, SHOUT
Viking Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random HouseAkwaeke Emezi, Pet
Make Me a World / Penguin Random HouseCynthia Kadohata, A Place to Belong
With illustrations by Julia Kuo
Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books / Simon & SchusterJason Reynolds, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks
Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books / Simon & SchusterRandy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing
Kokila / Penguin Random HouseLaura Ruby, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All
Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins PublishersMartin W. Sandler, 1919: The Year That Changed America
Bloomsbury Children’s Books / Bloomsbury PublishingHal Schrieve, Out of Salem
Triangle Square / Seven Stories PressColleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw, Kiss Number 8
First Second Books / Macmillan Publishers
TRANSLATED LITERATURE
Naja Marie Aidt, When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl’s Book
Translated by Denise Newman
Coffee House PressEliane Brum, The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil’s Everyday Insurrections
Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty
Graywolf PressNona Fernández, Space Invaders
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Graywolf PressVigdis Hjorth, Will and Testament
Translated by Charlotte Barslund
Verso Fiction / Verso BooksKhaled Khalifa, Death is Hard Work
Translated by Leri Price
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan PublishersLászló Krasznahorkai, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming
Translated by Ottilie Mulzet
New DirectionsScholastique Mukasonga, The Barefoot Woman
Translated by Jordan Stump
Archipelago BooksYoko Ogawa, The Memory Police
Translated by Stephen Snyder
Pantheon Books / Penguin Random HousePajtim Statovci, Crossing
Translated by David Hackston
Pantheon Books / Penguin Random HouseOlga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
POETRY
Dan Beachy-Quick, Variations on Dawn and Dusk
Omnidawn PublishingJericho Brown, The Tradition
Copper Canyon PressToi Derricotte, “I”: New and Selected Poems
University of Pittsburgh PressCamonghne Felix, Build Yourself a Boat
Haymarket BooksIlya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
Graywolf PressAriana Reines, A Sand Book
Tin House BooksMary Ruefle, Dunce
Wave BooksCarmen Giménez Smith, Be Recorder
Graywolf PressArthur Sze, Sight Lines
Copper Canyon PressBrian Teare, Doomstead Days
Nightboat Books
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