Ah, fall. That homey season of football, falling leaves — and of course, feting the best books of the year. The National Book Foundation did its part this week, rolling out the 50 nominees — 10 each across five categories — for its annual slate of literary awards.
Among the notable names on this year's National Book Award longlists are previous winners (Colson Whitehead and Cynthia Kadohata) and plenty of newcomers to the prize, especially among the poets and nonfiction writers.
They were winnowed from more than 1,700 submissions in 2019, and they're set for another winnowing in less than a month. Judges will halve the books still in contention when they announce the shortlists of finalists on Oct. 8, and just one book in each category will claim the prize at a ceremony in New York City on Nov. 20.
So, without further ado ...
Fiction
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble
Susan Choi, Trust Exercise
Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Corina: Stories
Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Laila Lalami, The Other Americans
Kimberly King Parsons, Black Light: Stories
Helen Phillips, The Need
Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
Nonfiction
Hanif Abdurraqib, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
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
Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Iliana Regan, Burn the Place: A Memoir
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
David Treuer,The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
Albert Woodfox with Leslie George, Solitary
Poetry
Dan Beachy-Quick, Variations on Dawn and Dusk
Jericho Brown, The Tradition
Toi Derricotte, "I": New and Selected Poems
Camonghne Felix, Build Yourself a Boat
Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
Ariana Reines, A Sand Book
Mary Ruefle, Dunce
Carmen Giménez Smith,Be Recorder
Arthur Sze,Sight Lines
Brian Teare,Doomstead Days
Translated Literature
Naja Marie Aidt, When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book
Translated by Denise Newman
Eliane Brum, The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil's Everyday Insurrections
Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty
Nona Fernández, Space Invaders
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Vigdis Hjorth, Will and Testament
Translated by Charlotte Barslund
Khaled Khalifa, Death is Hard Work
Translated by Leri Price
László Krasznahorkai, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming
Translated by Ottilie Mulzet
Scholastique Mukasonga, The Barefoot Woman
Translated by Jordan Stump
Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police
Translated by Stephen Snyder
Pajtim Statovci, Crossing
Translated by David Hackston
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Young People's Literature
Kwame Alexander; illustrations by Kadir Nelson,The Undefeated
Laurie Halse Anderson, SHOUT
Akwaeke Emezi, Pet
Cynthia Kadohata, A Place to Belong With illustrations by Julia Kuo
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
Hal Schrieve,Out of Salem
Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw, Kiss Number 8
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