The National Book Foundation announced the National Book Award finalists today on Buzzfeed News’ AM to DM. Each category – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature, and (the newest one) translated literature – has been narrowed down from the longlist ten to the finalist five. The awards will be revealed in New York City and online on November 14.
Here’s a list of the finalists in all five categories with bonus links where available:
Fiction:
- A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley (Our interview with Brinkley; Brinkley’s 2017 Year in Reading)
- Florida by Lauren Groff (Our review; The Millions interview with Groff)
- Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson (Featured in our February Book Preview)
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (Our interview with Makkai)
- The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (Nunez’s 2010 Year in Reading)
- The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation by Colin G. Calloway
- American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson
- Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh (Smarsh’s 2017 Year in Reading)
- The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
- We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights by Adam Winkler
- Wobble by Rae Armantrout
- American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (Our review)
- Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen
- Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed
- Eye Level by Jenny Xie (ft. in our April Must-Read Poetry preview)
- Disoriental by Négar Djavadi; translated by Tina Kover (Featured in our 2018 Great Book Preview)
- Love by Hanne Ørstavik; translated by Martin Aitken
- Trick by Domenico Starnone; translated by Jhumpa Lahiri (An essay on learning new languages)
- The Emissary by Yoko Tawada; translated by Margaret Mitsutani (Tawada’s 2017 Year in Reading)
- Flights by Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Jennifer Croft (Our review; 2018 Man Booker International Prize)
- The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
- The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin (Our three-part conversation from 2009 with Anderson)
- The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor
- The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis
- Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
