The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for the prestigious National Book Awards, naming five books each in five categories.
The winners will be announced Nov. 20.
The mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture.
Here are the five finalists in each category:
Fiction
- Susan Choi, Trust Exercise
- Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Corina: Stories
- Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf
- Laila Lalami, The Other Americans
- Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth
Nonfiction
- Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
- Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays
- Carolyn Forché, What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
- David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
- Albert Woodfox with Leslie George, Solitary
Young people’s literature
- Akwaeke Emezi, Pet
- Jason Reynolds, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks
- Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing
- Laura Ruby, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All
- Martin W. Sandler, 1919: The Year That Changed America
Poetry
- Jericho Brown, The Tradition
- Toi Derricotte, “I”: New and Selected Poems
- Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
- Carmen Giménez Smith, Be Recorder
- Arthur Sze, Sight Lines
Translated literature
- Khaled Khalifa, Death Is Hard Work
Translated from Arabic by Leri Price - László Krasznahorkai, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming
Translated from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet - Scholastique Mukasonga, The Barefoot Woman
Translated from French by Jordan Stump - Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police
Translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder - Pajtim Statovci, Crossing
Translated from Finnish by David Hackston
Genre: Potpourri
