Each year, the Finalists in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature gather the evening before the National Book Awards Ceremony to read excerpts from their honored works.
The 2024 National Book Awards Finalist Reading is on Tuesday, November 19 at 7:00pm EST, and will be hosted by Brittany Luse, award–winning journalist, cultural critic, and the host of It’s Been a Minute from NPR.
The event will be presented in person at NYU Skirball and livestreamed.
Presented in partnership with the NYU Creative Writing Program.
To learn more about the 2024 National Book Awards Finalists, click here.
FICTION FINALISTS
‘Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots Kaveh Akbar, Martyr! Percival Everett, James Miranda July, All Fours Hisham Matar, My Friends
NONFICTION FINALISTS
Jason De León, Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling Eliza Griswold, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder Deborah Jackson Taffa, Whiskey Tender
POETRY FINALISTS
Anne Carson, Wrong Norma Fady Joudah, […] m.s. RedCherries, mother Diane Seuss, Modern Poetry Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Something About Living
TRANSLATED LITERATURE FINALISTS
Bothayna Al-Essa, and translators Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain, The Book Censor’s Library Linnea Axelsson and translator Saskia Vogel, Ædnan Fiston Mwanza Mujila, and translator Roland Glasser, The Villain’s Dance Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King, Taiwan Travelogue Samar Yazbek and translator Leri Price, Where the Wind Calls Home
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE FINALISTS
Violet Duncan, Buffalo Dreamer Josh Galarza, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky Erin Entrada Kelly, The First State of Being Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Kareem Between Angela Shanté, The Unboxing of a Black Girl
(Finalists will not appear in this order. For select Finalists unable to attend, a literary luminary will read on their behalf.)
HOSTED BY BRITTANY LUSE
Brittany Luse. (Photo credit: Sophia Wilson)
Brittany Luse is an award–winning journalist, on-air host, and cultural critic. She is currently the host of It’s Been a Minute, a podcast and nationally syndicated radio showfrom NPR. Previously, Luse hosted For Colored Nerds, The Nod, and Sampler podcasts, and co-hosted and executive produced The Nod with Brittany and Eric, a daily streaming show. She’s written for Vulture and Harper’s Bazaar, among others, and edited for the podcasts Planet Money and Not Past It. Luse and her work have been profiled by publications like the New York Times, The New Yorker and Teen Vogue.
Teens Read the National Book Awards (formerly known as the Teen Press Conference) brings the excitement and prestige of the National Book Awards to an audience of young people through an exclusive, teen-focused event with National Book Award Finalists, in-school programming, book giveaways, and more.
Central to Teens Read is the annual mainstage event, held each year the day before the National Book Awards. New York City’s middle and high school students are invited to attend free of charge, receive free copies of the Young People’s Literature Finalists, and have the unique opportunity to connect and interact with high-profile authors in what is often their first exposure to a literary arts event.
Tuesday November 19th, 2024 Livestream: 11:00am-12:00pm EST
Jacqueline Woodson. (Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
HOSTED BY:
Jacqueline Woodson is the author of many books for young people and adults. She is the recipient of a number of awards including a 2023 E. B. White Award, a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, and a 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award. Her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming was a National Book Award Winner. Adult novels include Red At The Bone and Another Brooklyn.
FEATURING:
Violet Duncan, Buffalo Dreamer Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin Random House
Grammy Award winner Jon Batiste to join as first-ever live musical guest
The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, announced Kate McKinnon, actor, comedian, and bestselling author, will host the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, 2024. The composer, activist, and creator, Jon Batiste will perform live at the in-person Awards Ceremony to be held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
“The 2024 National Book Awards Ceremony marks an important milestone as we commemorate 75 years of honoring the best literature published in the United States,” said David Steinberger, Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation. “Kate McKinnon and Jon Batiste are two singular artists, writers, and performers, who have offered audiences around the world opportunities to listen, to laugh, and to learn. We couldn’t be more proud to join them in celebrating the power of exceptional books at this year’s Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner.”
“I’ve been an invested reader my whole life and am so honored to be part of this event that celebrates the life-changing power of books while recognizing some of today’s most brilliant storytellers,” said Kate McKinnon. “I was lucky to grow up surrounded by books, devouring everything from Pippi Longstocking to a comprehensive manual on proper iguana care, and this access to stories and perspectives helped shape my worldview and understanding of what was possible. The National Book Foundation is working to ensure everyone’s access to books, and I am proud to support that mission.”
Kate McKinnon is an Emmy Award–winning actor, writer, and former Saturday Night Live cast member. Her past performances include Bombshell, Rough Night, Ghostbusters, The Big Gay Sketch Show, and, most recently, Barbie. McKinnon’s debut middle-grade book, The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science, was released earlier this month, and was an instant New York Times bestseller.
“Books are sacred sources of refuge, insight and humanity, shaping the world as we know it,” said Jon Batiste. “I am excited to take part in recognizing world class artistry, creativity and the power of prose.”
Jon Batiste is a five-time Grammy Award–winning and Academy Award–winning singer, songwriter, and composer. He scored Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night in addition to composing and performing music for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2021. Batiste is featured in Matthew Heineman’s Netflix documentary, American Symphony, an intimate and moving exploration of a year in his life. His latest studio album, Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1), is forthcoming.
“We are thrilled to welcome Kate McKinnon—comedian, writer, and lover of stories—as the host of the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony, and to welcome the multi-genre musician Jon Batiste as the first-ever in-person musical guest,” said Ruth Dickey, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “As book banning continues to sweep the country, we believe that it is vitally important to champion stories, authors, translators, and readers of all ages in every corner. It is our great honor to mark this historic milestone alongside comedic force Kate McKinnon and maestro Jon Batiste, and share in celebrating this year’s Finalists with as many readers as possible through the Awards Ceremony, which will be broadcast live on nationalbook.org/awards.”
The Winners of the 2024 National Book Awards in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature will be announced live on Wednesday, November 20 at the invitation-only 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. The five Finalists in each category were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, and were announced earlier this month by the New York Times. The honored titles were advanced from the Longlists announced in September with The New Yorker.
Two lifetime achievement awards will also be presented as part of the evening’s ceremony: Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer Prize winning author, will be recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL), presented by Sam Stoloff, President & Principal of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency; and W. Paul Coates, publisher and founder of Black Classic Press, will receive the Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, presented by author and 2020 DCAL recipient Walter Mosley.
The National Book Foundation will broadcast the Ceremony for readers everywhere on YouTube, Facebook, and the Foundation’s website at nationalbook.org/awards. The 75th National Book Awards Ceremony will also be broadcast in its entirety on Sunday, December 1 on Book TV on C-SPAN2 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT, and again at 12:00am ET / 9:00pm PT.
In addition to announcing the National Book Award Winners, the Benefit Dinner drives funding for the Foundation’s year-round educational and public programming to connect readers of all ages, in every corner of the country, with books and authors. For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner, including sponsorship opportunities, please visit the National Book Foundation website.
Kate McKinnon. (Photo credit: Alexandra Carillo-Vaccino)
ABOUT KATE McKINNON
Kate McKinnon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, award-winning performer, and writer, who is celebrated globally for her work in film and television. Young readers will recognize her voice role as Ms. Frizzle in The Magic School Bus Rides Again for Netflix. She recently played Weird Barbie in Warner Brothers’ worldwide blockbuster, Barbie. The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science is her debut novel.
Jon Batiste. (Photo credit: David Needleman)
ABOUT JON BATISTE
Jon Batiste is a five-time Grammy Award–winning and Academy Award–winning singer, songwriter, and composer. He scored Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night in addition to composing and performing music for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2021. Batiste is featured in Matthew Heineman’s Netflix documentary, American Symphony, an intimate and moving exploration of a year in his life. His latest studio album, Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1), is forthcoming.
National Book Award honorees Bruna Dantas Lobato (The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, 2023 Translated Literature Winner; and Blue Light Hours) and Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain, 2020 Fiction Finalist; and the international bestseller Young Mungo) bring an international perspective to the page that feels all too familiar: flawed characters endeavoring to love one another.
On Saturday, October 12 at 7:00pm CDT, this livestreamed event will feature readings and conversation on the push and pull of original works and works in translation, and the representation of queer love and pain in fiction. Moderated by Natalie Green, Director of Programs & Partnerships at the National Book Foundation, and presented in partnership with the Hay Festival Forum Dallas.
The livestream will be available for free on the Hay Festival’s website for 15 days. Following, it will be added to Hay Festival Anytime, a subscription-based platform with audio and videos for worldwide Hay Festivals.
Each year, the Finalists in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature gather the evening before the National Book Awards Ceremony to read excerpts from their honored works. To learn more about the 2024 National Book Awards Finalists, click here.
The 2024 National Book Awards Finalist Reading will be hosted by Brittany Luse, award–winning journalist, on-air host and cultural critic, and the host of It’s Been a Minute from NPR.
Doors will open at 6:30pm, and the program will begin at 7:00pm EST.
Presented in partnership with the NYU Creative Writing Program.
FICTION FINALISTS
‘Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots Kaveh Akbar, Martyr! Percival Everett, James Miranda July, All Fours Hisham Matar, My Friends
NONFICTION FINALISTS
Jason De León, Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling Eliza Griswold, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder Deborah Jackson Taffa, Whiskey Tender
POETRY FINALISTS
Anne Carson, Wrong Norma Fady Joudah, […] m.s. RedCherries, mother Diane Seuss, Modern Poetry Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Something About Living
TRANSLATED LITERATURE FINALISTS
Bothayna Al-Essa, and translators Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain, The Book Censor’s Library Linnea Axelsson and translator Saskia Vogel, Ædnan Fiston Mwanza Mujila, and translator Roland Glasser, The Villain’s Dance Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King, Taiwan Travelogue Samar Yazbek and translator Leri Price, Where the Wind Calls Home
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE FINALISTS
Violet Duncan, Buffalo Dreamer Josh Galarza, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky Erin Entrada Kelly, The First State of Being Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Kareem Between Angela Shanté, The Unboxing of a Black Girl
(Finalists will not appear in this order)
HOSTED BY BRITTANY LUSE
Brittany Luse. (Photo credit: Sophia Wilson)
Brittany Luse is an award–winning journalist, on-air host, and cultural critic. She is currently the host of It’s Been a Minute, a podcast and nationally syndicated radio showfrom NPR. Previously, Luse hosted For Colored Nerds, The Nod, and Sampler podcasts, and co-hosted and executive produced The Nod with Brittany and Eric, a daily streaming show. She’s written for Vulture and Harper’s Bazaar, among others, and edited for the podcasts Planet Money and Not Past It. Luse and her work have been profiled by publications like the New York Times, The New Yorker and Teen Vogue.
Twenty-five Finalists to contend for National Book Awards in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature
The 25 Finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature were announced with the New York Times. The five Finalists in each category were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, and were advanced from the Longlists announced in September with The New Yorker.
Across the five categories, one writer and one translator have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation: Leri Price and Samar Yazbek were Finalists in 2021 for Planet of Clay, and, for her translations, Price was Longlisted in 2023 for No One Prayed Over TheirGraves and a Finalist in 2019 for Death Is Hard Work, both written by Khaled Khalifa. All of the Finalists in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature are first-time National Book Award honorees. Five of the 25 Finalists are debuts, and ten independent and university publishers are represented.
The 2024 Finalists will read from their work at the National Book Awards Finalist Reading on the evening of Tuesday, November 19 at NYU Skirball, an annual in-person, ticketed event that is open to the public and livestreamed for readers everywhere. The Finalist Reading will be hosted by Brittany Luse, an award-winning journalist, cultural critic, and host of It’s Been a Minute from NPR. The Finalist Reading is presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation and the NYU Creative Writing Program, and tickets are available for purchase on NYU Skirball’s website.
On the morning of Tuesday, November 19, the Finalists in Young People’s Literature connect with middle and high school students for Teens Read the 2024 National Book Awards, hosted by National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson, The in-person event, which features readings, Q&A, and book signings, is at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City. Teens Read will be livestreamed for students and educators across the country; and the first 25 public school educators to register will receive one set of the five Finalist titles. For more information and to register for the livestream, please visit nationalbook.org/teens-read.
The Winners of the National Book Award for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature will be announced live on Wednesday, November 20 at the invitation-only 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. The National Book Foundation will broadcast the Ceremony for readers everywhere on YouTube, Facebook, and the Foundation’s website at nationalbook.org/awards. The 75th National Book Awards Ceremony will also be broadcast in its entirety on Sunday, December 1 on Book TV on C-SPAN2 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT, and again at 12:00am ET / 9:00pm PT.
Winners of the National Book Awards receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and statue; Finalists receive $1,000 and a bronze medal; Winners and Finalists in the Translated Literature category will split the prize evenly between author and translator. Two lifetime achievement awards will also be presented as part of the evening’s ceremony: Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer Prize winning author, will be recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by Sam Stoloff, President & Principal of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency; and W. Paul Coates, publisher and founder of Black Classic Press, will receive the Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, presented by author and recipient of the 2020 DCAL Medal Walter Mosley.
Publishers submitted a total of 1,917 books for this year’s National Book Awards: 473 in Fiction, 671 in Nonfiction, 299 in Poetry, 141 in Translated Literature, and 333 in Young People’s Literature. Judges’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential.
Finalists for Fiction:
’Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots Norton / W. W. Norton & Company
Percival Everett,James Doubleday / Penguin Random House
Miranda July, All Fours Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
Hisham Matar, My Friends Random House / Penguin Random House
Set in Lagos, Nigeria, the cast of characters in ’Pemi Aguda’s debut short story collection, Ghostroots, are haunted by regrets while searching for freedom from the ghosts of their ancestors. Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel Martyr! contemplates grief, addiction, and the work of finding meaning in art through the story of the newly sober and orphaned poet Cyrus Shams. In James, Percival Everett considers authorial intent and the possibilities of agency through a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that centers Jim, an enslaved runaway who was relegated to the role of a mild-mannered companion in Mark Twain’s original telling. In All Fours, Miranda July tells the story of an unnamed 45-year-old female artist’s—at times desperate—desire to reinvent her life and to create art in the face of monotony, menopause, and mortality. My Friends by Hisham Matar follows Khaled Abd al Hady and two friends living in exile in Britain as they come together and apart over decades, wrestling with revolution, war, and their loyalties to themselves and to their homeland.
Deborah Jackson Taffa, Whiskey Tender Harper / HarperCollins Publishers
In Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, anthropologist Jason De León embedded himself within a group of human smugglers to document the trauma, violence, and poverty that fuels both one intimate group, and the larger mass movement north of undocumented immigrants. Drawing on deep reporting, Eliza Griswold examines the progressive Christian church, Circle of Hope—from its founding in 1996 through its rapid expansion and eventual collapse—in Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church. Blending lived experience with meticulous research, Kate Manne asserts that weight stigma and discrimination play a part in all aspects of society, including healthcare, education, and employment in Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia. In his memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie candidly recounts the 2022 attack on his life, its immediate aftermath, and his ongoing journey of physical rehabilitation and healing. Deborah Jackson Taffa explores her family’s history of displacement within the United States and considers how she came to understand and claim her mixed-tribe Native identity in her memoir, Whiskey Tender.
Finalists for Poetry:
Anne Carson, Wrong Norma New Directions Publishing
Anne Carson reflects on the ordinary and the everyday in Wrong Norma, and interspersed with images hand-drawn by Carson, the 25 prose poems feature glimpses at the inner workings—and often disjointed nature—of the human mind. Fady Joudah’s collection of poems—[…]—is a rumination on the unspeakable atrocities of war; the present and ongoing erasure of Palestinian people, history, and culture; and a dedication to a people’s everyday desires and humanity. Through poetry and prose, m.s. RedCherries’s debut collection, mother, tells the story of an Indigenous child adopted by a non-Native family and her journey, as an adult, to return to her tribe. Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss examines contemporary poetry with irreverence and love—interrogating which voices are enshrined in textbooks, anthologies, and publishing, and which are left out. In the face of displacement, grief, and the ongoing horrors of war, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s Something About Living scrutinizes language and the obfuscation of Palestinian history, both in Palestine and across the diaspora.
Finalists for Translated Literature:
Bothayna Al-Essa, The Book Censor’s Library Translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain Restless Books
Linnea Axelsson, Ædnan Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel Knopf / Penguin Random House
Fiston Mwanza Mujila, The Villain’s Dance Translated from the French by Roland Glasser Deep Vellum / Deep Vellum Publishing
Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, Taiwan Travelogue Translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King Graywolf Press
Set in a dystopian future headed by an all-powerful government, Bothayna Al-Essa’s unnamed narrator is hired as a book censor and tasked with identifying books not fit for publication in The Book Censor’s Library, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain. Linnea Axelsson’s Ædnan, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel, is an epic that relates the experiences of two Indigenous Sámi families over the course of three generations and one hundred years in a tale of displacement, cultural erasure, and resistance in the face of colonial oppression. In Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s The Villain’s Dance, translated from the French by Roland Glasser, readers traverse timelines, perspectives, and borders, following a cast of characters whose quests for survival amidst political, environmental, and financial uncertainty somehow, ultimately, converge. Yáng Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue, translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, follows a fictional Japanese writer and her relationship with the charming yet closed-off Taiwanese woman who serves as her interpreter. In Where the Wind Calls Home, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price, Samar Yazbek recounts the history of a country’s cultural richness and religious traditions through the eyes of a wounded 19-year-old soldier fighting to survive in the Syrian Civil War.
Finalists for Young People’s Literature:
Violet Duncan, Buffalo Dreamer Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin Random House
In Buffalo Dreamer, a story inspired by Violet Duncan’s own family history, 12-year-old Summer eagerly anticipates summer vacation until she begins to have vivid, unnerving dreams about an Indigenous girl attempting to escape a real-life residential school. The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky, Josh Galarza’s debut novel, follows Brett as he grapples with his peers’ scrutiny and judgement after his journal goes viral on social media, and—with the help of unexpected friends—faces his own internalized fatphobia and disordered eating. In Erin Entrada Kelly’s The First State of Being, while Michael Rosario is preparing for the impending Y2K crisis by stockpiling supplies and catastrophizing, his life is forever altered by the arrival of Ridge, a mysterious, disoriented teenage boy from the year 2199. Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s novel-in-verse, Kareem Between, chronicles the story of Kareem, a Syrian American Muslim teen stuck in the middle of cultures, parents, and countries as he courageously forges his own moral compass. Angela Shanté reflects on the personal and the political in her ode to Black girlhood—told in vignettes and poems influenced by the author’s upbringing in New York City, The Unboxing of a Black Girl serves as a reminder to be gentle with your heart and your mind in defiance of a society that insists on boxing you in.
The ten contenders for the National Book Award for Fiction
The National Book Foundation today announced the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award forFiction. The Finalists in all five categories will be revealed on Tuesday, October 1 with the New York Times; Winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
The 2024 Fiction Longlist includes authors at all stages of their careers, and features three debut novels and one debut short story collection. Two authors on the Fiction Longlist have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2020 for The Undocumented Americans; and Rachel Kushner was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2008 for Telex from Cuba and in 2013 for The Flamethrowers.
Among these ten Longlisters are Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellows. This year’s honored Fiction authors have been recognized by numerous other awards and honors, including the Booker Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the O. Henry Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the Windham Campbell Prize, and the Whiting Award. Their writing has been featured in Granta, Harper’s Magazine,n +1, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Vogue, and elsewhere.
In their latest novels, two authors reinvent genre and expand the American literary canon. Percival Everett’s reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn centers Jim, an enslaved runaway who was relegated to the role of a mild-mannered companion in Mark Twain’s original telling. As Jim and Huck journey down the Mississippi River, readers see the world through James’s point of view—as he adjusts his language, mannerisms, and appearance to both appease the white people around him and to protect his own life. James considers authorial intent and the possibilities of agency, even within the most racist and inequitable contexts. Outside of the US, Rachel Kushner introduces readers to “Sadie Smith”—a 34-year-old undercover agent and American expat who is hired to infiltrate a group of radical French environmentalists. A nonbeliever amongst believers, Sadie is at the center of a community and remains ruthlessly individual even as her employers continue to raise the stakes. Part espionage and part existential thriller, Creation Lake dives deep into the world of ideology, environmental activism, and ultimately, the nature of identity itself.
Two Longlisted debut novels follow protagonists determined to carve their own paths forward. Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio follows the fiercely independent and academic overachiever Catalina Ituralde as she navigates complex family dynamics at home, micro-aggressions in and outside of the classroom, and the looming threat of her grandfather’s deportation. Told over the course of an undocumented Harvard student’s senior year, Catalina is the moving story of a young writer intent on finding love and humor in spite of—or, perhaps because of—the uncertainty of her future. Sam Sax’s queer, Jewish coming-of-age story follows Ezra in the span of time between when they light themself on fire and when they die at a protest outside of Trump Tower. Told in vignettes that detail everyone the novel’s protagonist has ever loved, every place they’ve ever felt accepted or excluded, and the reasons they decided on this final act of self-immolation, Yr Dead is a searing exploration of the histories, memories, and politics that shape our present and our future.
Two Longlisted titles showcase short story collections that depict reality as something speculative. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, the narrators in Ghostroots’ 12 stories reckon with every-day horror: infidelity, mysterious diseases, recollections of a tragic accident, and the pain of seeing their loved ones deteriorate. Throughout this debut collection, ’Pemi Aguda compassionately explores a cast of characters haunted by regrets and searching for freedom from the ghosts of their ancestors. Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection follows a cast of chronically online characters yearning for intimacy, approval, and connection in real life. As they navigate repeated rejection—from dating apps and social media feeds to bedrooms and bars—the characters in these seven connected stories lay bare the awkwardness, isolation, and occasional delusion, of life and love in the internet age.
As a child, Khaled Abd al Hady hears a short story on the radio that alters the course of his life, prompting him to move from his native Libya to Scotland to attend university. My Friends by Hisham Matar follows Khaled and two friends living in exile in Britain as they come together and apart over decades, wrestling with revolution, war, and their loyalties to themselves and to their homeland. Impending death haunts the debut novel Martyr!, in which the poet Cyrus Shams grapples with the loss that has permeated his life—his mother’s death in a US airstrike when he was an infant, his and his father’s expatriation from their native Iran to the American Midwest, and later his father’s death by stroke—alongside Cyrus’s own alcohol and drug addiction recovery. As his obsession with martyrs grows, Cyrus tasks himself with uncovering his family’s past, writing a novel, and meeting a terminally ill Iranian artist living out her last days at the Brooklyn Museum, in Kaveh Akbar’s contemplation of grief, addiction, love, and finding hope and meaning in art.
This year’s Fiction Longlist features two titles that interrogate the role of gender in marriage, in sex, and in artmaking. On an unusually warm Sunday in November, housewife, mother, and former tennis champion Kathleen Beckett puts on her old, red bathing suit, enters her apartment complex’s semi-abandoned pool, and refuses to come out. Set over the course of eight hours, Jessica Anthony’s The Most paints an intimate portrait of marriage in the late 1950s—and the secrets, expectations, and lost loves that tells the story of one seemingly unremarkable couple and a larger cultural moment. In All Fours, when an unnamed 45-year-old female artist drives from Los Angeles to New York City for a two-week writing retreat, she spontaneously discards her plans and checks into a nondescript motel and begins to spend time with a married 31-year-old man, commissioning his wife to redecorate her rented room, and daring to imagine an entirely new way of living. Miranda July tells the story of one woman’s—at times desperate—desire to reinvent her life and to create art in the face of monotony, menopause, and mortality.
Publishers submitted a total of 473 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. The judges for Fiction are Jamie Ford, Lauren Groff (Chair), Zeyn Joukhadar, Chawa Magaña, and Reginald McKnight. Judges’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential. Judges’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential. For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner and to register for the broadcast, please visit nationalbook.org/awards.
2024 Longlist for the National Book Award for Fiction:
‘Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots Norton / W. W. Norton & Company
The ten contenders for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
The National Book Foundation today announced the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The Finalists in all five categories will be revealed on Tuesday, October 1 with the New York Times; Winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
The 2024 Nonfiction Longlist includes emerging and established writers, and features works of memoir, science writing, investigative works, and much more. The majority of the Longlisted authors are newcomers to the National Book Awards, with two exceptions—Hanif Abdurraqib was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2021 and a Longlister in 2019, and Richard Slotkin was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1993 and a Finalist for the National Book Award for History in 1974.
This year’s Nonfiction Longlist includes MacArthur, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, and Knight Science Journalism Program Fellows. The Longlisted authors have been previously honored by the Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Whiting Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and more. Their work has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, HuffPost, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Quanta Magazine, The Rumpus, and Scientific American, among others.
The 2024 Nonfiction Longlist includes two personal reflections on the role of mortality and community. In There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, Hanif Abdurraqib reflects on his lifelong love of basketball and what it means to “make it.” Weaving together memories from his childhood, sports history, and cultural criticism, Abdurraqib offers a vulnerable meditation on grief, success, and the people and places that shape our individual and collective histories. In his memoir, Salman Rushdie candidly recounts the 2022 attack on his life, its immediate aftermath, and his ongoing journey of physical rehabilitation and healing. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder is a deeply intimate account, at once corporeal and metaphysical, that wrestles with artmaking, community, and the power of literature to make sense of the unimaginable.
Two titles on this year’s Longlist explore the impact of familial and cultural expectations on identity, with special attention paid to the role of American ideologies and tradition. Born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico by parents determined to assimilate, Deborah Jackson Taffa explores her family’s history of displacement within the United States and considers how she came to understand and claim her mixed-tribe Native identity. Whiskey Tender traces Taffa’s adolescence on and off the reservation in a moving excavation of her family’s history; the long legacy of erasure, violence, and injustice faced by Native peoples; and finding a balance between two cultural landscapes. In her essay collection, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal grapples with her role as the eldest daughter of immigrant parents, the search for her grandmother’s story in her native Mexico, and how she continuously builds and re-builds the world around her. Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders intermingles personal essays with insightful criticism, and turns to fantasy and pop culture—from Game of Thrones to Beyoncé—to uncover the truth and magic of a fractured reality.
Two Longlisted titles explore belief systems and their origins in the United States, as well as their profound effects on American politics and values. Historian and cultural critic Richard Slotkin outlines five foundational mythologies that have shaped US identity, using history as a lens to interpret the present-day bifurcated political landscape. In A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America, Slotkin deploys the country’s troubled history of frontierism to help readers understand today’s culture wars and the rise of bipartisanship and radicalization in the US. Drawing on deep reporting, Eliza Griswold examines the progressive Christian church, Circle of Hope—from its founding in 1996, its expansion in the 2010s into four Northeastern congregations, and the fissures that emerged when the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to gather for in-person worship. Told through profiles of four young pastors, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church chronicles the church’s anti-racist politics and members’ biases; the rise in social activism movements across the country; and what it means to build an equitable future rooted in faith.
Blending lived experience with meticulous research, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia asserts that weight stigma and discrimination play a part in all aspects of society, including healthcare, education, and employment. Kate Manne argues that fatphobia harms not just individuals, but entire communities and cultures, and coins the term “body reflexivity”—a new politics that reexamines and deconstructs why bodies exist in the first place and seeks to build a world that is welcoming for people of all sizes.
Three titles on this year’s Longlist explore the role of exploitation—regionally, globally, and even, cosmically. For seven years, anthropologist Jason De León embedded himself within a group of human smugglers—or coyotes—hired by migrants to cross from Central America and Mexico into the United States in Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling. In this rare, in-depth look at the lives of informants, gang leaders, and guides, De León documents the intergenerational trauma, cycles of violence, and scarcity of economic opportunities that fuel the mass movement of undocumented immigrants north in search of the American Dream. Journalist Ernest Scheyder explores the domestic and international struggles over the mining of lithium, copper, gold, and other vital minerals whose production and processing play a crucial role in combating climate change and powers the world’s most critical technologies. The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives chronicles how corporations work with—and at times, undermine—the concerns of environmental activists and Indigenous peoples, regulatory agencies and government workers, and locals rightfully concerned about the far-reaching consequences of mining in their communities. Science journalist Rebecca Boyle illuminates how the Moon has shaped life on Earth—from its essential role in the development of science and religion, continued influence on biological and cultural evolution, and inevitable exploitation by governments and individuals intent on profiting off of its natural resources. Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are introduces readers to the important scientific figures, early civilizations, modern scientists, and everyday people that have relied on the Moon—its histories, myths, and teachings—to discover the essence of Earth’s closest companion.
Publishers submitted a total of 671 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The judges for Nonfiction are Brenda J. Child, Anand Giridharadas, Tressie McMillan Cottom (Chair), Timothy Morton, and Arvin Ramgoolam. Judges’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential. For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner and to register for the broadcast, please visit nationalbook.org/awards.
2024 Longlist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction:
The ten contenders for the National Book Award for Poetry
The National Book Foundation announced the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. The Finalists in all five categories will be revealed on Tuesday, October 1 with the New York Times; Winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
The 2024 Poetry Longlist includes poets in all stages of their publishing careers, and nine of the ten poets on the Longlist are first-time National Book Award honorees. The only poet that has been previously honored by the National Book Awards is Rowan Ricardo Phillips, who was Longlisted in 2015 for his poetry collection Heaven.
This year’s Poetry Longlist includes five Guggenheim Fellows and two Pulitzer Prize winners. The poets have been recognized by the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Lannan Literary Award, the Pushcart Prizes, and more. Five of the books come from independent publishers and two come from university presses, including one publisher that is appearing on the National Book Award Longlists for the first time: Texas Review Press.
Two Longlisted poets compassionately reflect on the ordinary and the everyday, and offer a necessary reminder that even the most mundane act can be remarkable. Anne Carson’s latest collection considers Roget’s Thesaurus, her father, Guantánamo, water, and many more deceptively disconnected topics that, as the collection’s title suggests, might seem “wrong.” The 25 prose poems in Wrong Norma, interspersed with images hand-drawn by Carson, features glimpses at the inner workings—and often disjointed nature—of the human mind. In her newest poetry collection, Dorianne Laux tenderly examines the quotidian—a shovel and rake, Bisquick, salt, and even a can of WD-40—alongside motherhood, aging, and loss. Life on Earth reflects on the many delights and heartbreaks of life, compels us to embrace the abundant beauty of the natural world, and, perhaps most importantly, invites us to consider that even the most ordinary aspects of our messy humanity can be worthy of poetry.
Fady Joudah’s collection of poems is a rumination on the unspeakable atrocities of war; the present and ongoing erasure of Palestinian people, history, and culture; and a dedication to a people’s everyday desires and humanity. The collection’s title—[…], ellipsis in brackets—doubles as a space for mourning, and an urgent reminder for all of us to pay attention to the harms of passive voice and the need for a future voice for the stories of Palestinian people.
Two Longlisted poets offer deeply personal interrogations of US history, intertwining archive, art, and self. Spanning 400 years of history, Elizabeth Willis investigates Mormonism—the religion she was born into—and its influence on domestic labor, economics, and family dynamics. Interweaving research material—including the multilayered voices of Willis’s own family members—Liontaming in America juxtaposes performance and the long tradition of lion taming with the United States’ continuous settler colonial project. Gregory Pardlo traces the ways in which American society has historically regarded Black people as threats and how these panic-driven perceptions influence the ongoing criminalization and persecution of Black bodies. Beginning with Tituba, the only enslaved Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials, Spectral Evidence grapples with objectification, femininity, beauty, and the painful truths that dictate how Blackness and womanhood have been viewed throughout history and into the present day.
Three Longlisted books of poetry, including one debut collection, make the case for reclaiming language as an act of survival. The Book of Wounded Sparrows reflects on all that can be lost—a sense of identity, culture, language, and even history—in pursuit of the American Dream. Traversing the borders of visual art and text and shifting between English and Spanish, Octavio Quintanilla makes a history of dislocation physical, and transforms it into a source of creativity. In the face of displacement, grief, and the ongoing horrors of war, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha scrutinizes language and the obfuscation of Palestinian history, both in Palestine and across the diaspora. Part elegy for a people and a country, Something About Living probes the borders of politics, speech, and culture, to preserve brief moments of joy in defiance of continued violence. Through poetry and prose, m.s. RedCherries’s debut collection tells the story of an Indigenous child adopted by a non-Native family and her journey, as an adult, to return to her tribe. Blending real and imagined histories and community lore, mother presents a poignant exploration of Indigenous identity, the relationship between daughters and mothers, and the universal desire to find a way home.
Two collections reflect on the power of poetry and the role of poets to help make sense of the world. Through dreamlike poems, Rowan Ricardo Phillips is determined to uncover the musicality and “the meaningfulness of this mystery we call life.” Phillips’ fourth collection, Silver, acknowledges the very worst of the years following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd’s murder, while daring readers to imagine again, with poetry as a guide. Borrowing its title from the first poetry course she took as a college student, Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss examines contemporary poetry with irreverence and love—interrogating which voices are enshrined in textbooks, anthologies, and publishing, as well as those left out. Modern Poetry and its author claim poetry, for all of its limitations, as essential—to poets and to readers.
Publishers submitted a total of 299 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. The judges for Poetry are Richard Blanco(Chair), Carolyn Forché, Tyehimba Jess, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Rena Priest. Judges’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential. For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner and to register for the broadcast, please visit nationalbook.org/awards.
2024 Longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry:
Anne Carson, Wrong Norma New Directions Publishing
