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Program

Program

2022 National Book Awards Ceremony Program. Order of presentations for the evening.

Ceremony Schedule

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Ceremony Details

Ceremony Details

Host

photo of Padma Lakshmi. (Photo credit: Inez and Vinoodh)
(Photo credit: Inez and Vinoodh)

Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated producer, food expert, television host, and New York Times bestselling author. She is the creator, host, and executive producer of the critically acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation, which received multiple Critics Choice Real TV Awards in both 2021 and 2022, a 2021 Gotham Award nomination for Breakthrough Series, and the 2022 James Beard Award for Visual Media—Long Form. Taste the Nation is currently gearing up for its third season.

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Lifetime Achievement

2022 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, Tracie Hall, Executive Director of the American Library Association (ALA). (Photo credit: American Library Association)
(Photo credit: American Library Association)

Tracie D. Hall will be recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, presented by author Ibram X. Kendi.

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Author and cartoonist Art Spiegelman
(Photo credit: Nadja Spiegelman)

Art Spiegelman will be recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by author Neil Gaiman.

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Awards Winners & Finalists

Young People's Literature

Young People's Literature

  • All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - National Book Award Winner, 2022
    All My Rage
    Sabaa Tahir Razorbill / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Kelly Barnhill, The Ogress and the Orphans
    The Ogress and the Orphans
    Kelly Barnhill Algonquin Young Readers / Workman Publishing
  • book cover for Sonora Reyes, The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
    The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
    Sonora Reyes Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins Publishers
  • book cover for Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice
    Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist For Justice
    Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile Norton Young Readers / W. W. Norton & Company
  • book cover for Lisa Yee, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
    Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
    Lisa Yee Random House Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House
Longlist
Judges for Young People's Literature
  • Becky Albertalli

    Becky Albertalli is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult novels, including Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda which was Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, won the William C. Morris Award, and is now a major motion picture, Love, Simon. She lives with her family in Atlanta.

  • Joseph Bruchac

    Joseph Bruchac is a citizen of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation, who has authored over 170 books and has appeared in publications from Parabola and National Geographic to The Paris Review. His experiences include teaching in Ghana and running a college program inside a maximum-security prison. Time Magazine listed his novel Code Talker as one of the 100 Best YA books of All Time. Dr. Bruchac’s novel in verse, Rez Dogs, was one of NPR’s Best Books of 2021.

  • Meghan Dietsche Goel

    Meghan Dietsche Goel has been the Children’s Book Buyer & Programming Director for BookPeople in Austin, TX since 2005 and serves as the programming director for the Texas Teen Book Festival, which she helped launch in 2009. She also writes about books and bookselling for Publisher’s Weekly’s “ShelfTalker.” She has served as President of the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association and worked in editorial at HarperCollins Children’s Books.

  • Jewell Parker Rhodes

    Jewell Parker Rhodes is the award-winning author of several books for adults and young people including the New York Times bestsellers Ghost Boys and Black Brother, Black Brother. Dr. Rhodes is the Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and the Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair and Narrative Studies Professor at Arizona State University.

  • Lilliam Rivera

    Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning author of the young adult novels We Light Up the Sky; Never Look Back, a Pura Belpré Honor book; Dealing in Dreams; and The Education of Margot Sanchez, as well as the Goldie Vance series for middle-grade readers and the graphic novel, Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Elle, among others. Lilliam lives in Los Angeles.

Translated Literature

Translated Literature

  • Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin
    Seven Empty Houses
    Samanta Schweblin Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Jon Fosse, A New Name: Septology VI-VII
    A New Name: Septology VI-VII
    Jon Fosse Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls Transit Books
  • book cover for Scholastique Mukasonga, Kibogo
    Kibogo
    Scholastique Mukasonga Translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti Archipelago Books
  • book cover for Mónica Ojeda, Jawbone
    Jawbone
    Mónica Ojeda Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker Coffee House Press
  • book cover Yoko Tawada, Scattered All Over the Earth
    Scattered All Over the Earth
    Yoko Tawada Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani New Directions Publishing
Longlist
Judges for Translated Literature
  • Nick Buzanski

    Nick Buzanski has been a bookseller at Green Apple Books in San Francisco and Strand Bookstore in Manhattan. He is currently the General Manager of Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, NY. He was a judge for the 2020 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize and is an instructor for the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s Store & Operations Management Professional Bookseller Certification Program.

  • Veronica Esposito

    Veronica Esposito has worked in literary translation for well over a decade as an editor, publicist, mentor, and advocate. The author of four books, she has published with the New York Times, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and dozens of others. She is currently pursuing licensure as a mental health clinician, specializing in trauma and supporting transgender individuals.

  • Ann Goldstein

    Ann Goldstein is a former editor at The New Yorker. She has translated works by Elena Ferrante, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Elsa Morante, among others, and is the editor of The Complete Works of Primo Levi in English. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

  • Rohan Kamicheril

    Rohan Kamicheril is a writer, editor, and cook. He is the founder of Tiffin, a website dedicated to regional Indian cooking, and The Tiffin Club, its companion dinner series.

  • Russell Scott Valentino

    Russell Scott Valentino is an author, editor, and translator. His publications have appeared in the New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Modern Fiction Studies, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. He has served as Editor at The Iowa Review, President of the American Literary Translators Association, and senior editor at Autumn Hill Books. He teaches in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures and the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University Bloomington.

Poetry

Poetry

  • Punks: New and Selected Poems
    Punks: New & Selected Poems
    John Keene The Song Cave
  • book cover for Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Look at This Blue
    Look at This Blue
    Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Coffee House Press
  • book cover for Sharon Olds, Balladz
    Balladz
    Sharon Olds Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian
    Best Barbarian
    Roger Reeves W. W. Norton & Company
  • book cover for Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense
    The Rupture Tense
    Jenny Xie Graywolf Press
Longlist
Judges for Poetry
  • Kwame Dawes

    Kwame Dawes is the author of 22 books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. He is a George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner. His honors include an Emmy Award, the Forward Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and the Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry.

  • Juan Felipe Herrera

    Juan Felipe Herrera is the son of farmworkers, a former United States Poet Laureate and California Poet Laureate, and a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. His awards include the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award, two Latino Hall of Fame Awards, and a Pushcart Prize. His poem “Sunriders” was engraved on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft launched in 2021. He has written over 30 books across genres.

  • Keetje Kuipers

    Keetje Kuipers is the author of three collections: Beautiful in the Mouth, The Keys to the Jail, and All Its Charms, which includes poems published in both The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Previously a Wallace Stegner Fellow, Keetje currently lives with her wife and children in Missoula where she is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Montana. She is Editor of Poetry Northwest and a board member at the National Book Critics Circle.

  • January Gill O’Neil

    January Gill O’Neil is the author of Rewilding, Misery Islands, and Underlife, all published by CavanKerry Press. She is the former executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. Currently, she is an associate professor at Salem State University and serves on the boards of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Mass Poetry, and Montserrat College of Art.

  • Mai Der Vang

    Mai Der Vang is the author of Yellow Rain, a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. Her first book Afterland was Longlisted for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and selected for the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at California State University, Fresno.

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

  • South to Anerica by Imani Perry
    South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
    Imani Perry Ecco / HarperCollins Publishers
  • book cover for Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
    The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
    Meghan O’Rourke Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
    Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
    David Quammen Simon & Schuster
  • book cover for Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir
    The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir
    Ingrid Rojas Contreras Doubleday / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
    His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
    Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa Viking Books / Penguin Random House
Longlist
Judges for Nonfiction
  • Carol Anderson

    Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Emory University. She is the author of several award-winning books, including the New York Times bestseller White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide; One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying our Democracy, which was Longlisted for the National Book Award; and The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Dr. Anderson earned her PhD in history from The Ohio State University.

  • Melissa Febos

    Melissa Febos is the author of Whip Smart; Abandon Me; Girlhood, a national bestseller and National Book Critics Circle finalist; and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She is a recipient of the Jeanne Córdova Prize from Lambda Literary and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, MacDowell, and other awards. She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa.

  • Thor Hanson

    Thor Hanson is the author of six books, including Feathers, Buzz, The Triumph of Seeds, and Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid. His work has been translated into a dozen languages and has earned many accolades, including the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books, and three Pacific Northwest Book Awards. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Switzer Fellow, and winner of the John Burroughs Medal.

  • Janet Webster Jones

    Janet Webster Jones, a retired public school educator and the daughter of a public librarian, is the founder of Source Booksellers. Established in 1989 and based in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood, Source Booksellers is a unique niche of nonfiction books that serves a wide community of readers near and far.

  • Oscar Villalon

    Oscar Villalon is the managing editor at ZYZZYVA. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, Literary Hub, and other publications. A former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he lives with his family in San Francisco.

Fiction

Fiction

  • 2022 National Book Award Winner - The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
    The Rabbit Hutch
    Tess Gunty Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House
  • book cover Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
    The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
    Jamil Jan Kochai Viking Books / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Gayl Jones, The Birdcatcher
    The Birdcatcher
    Gayl Jones Beacon Press
  • book cover Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different
    All This Could Be Different
    Sarah Thankam Mathews Viking Books / Penguin Random House
  • book cover for Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon
    The Town of Babylon
    Alejandro Varela Astra House / Astra Publishing House
Longlist
Judges for Fiction
  • Ben Fountain

    Ben Fountain is the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, a Finalist for the National Book Award. His work has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN/Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports Writing, and a Whiting Award, among other honors. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

  • Brandon Hobson

    Brandon Hobson is the author of The Removed. His novel, Where the Dead Sit Talking, was a Finalist for the National Book Award, among other distinctions. His short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in The Best American Short Stories anthology, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, NOON, and elsewhere. Dr. Hobson teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

  • Pam Houston

    Pam Houston is the author of two novels, two collections of short stories, and the memoir Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. She is also the co-author of Air Mail: Letters of Politics Pandemics and Place, among other books. She teaches creative writing at the University of California, Davis and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She cofounded the literary nonprofit Writing by Writers, and is fiction editor at Terrain.org. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

  • Dana Johnson

    Dana Johnson is the author of the short story collection In the Not Quite Dark. She is also the author of Break Any Woman Down, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the novel Elsewhere, California. Both books were nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and Callaloo, among others, and in several anthologies. Johnson is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

  • Michelle Malonzo

    Michelle Malonzo is currently the Head of Operations at The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary and was previously a buyer at Changing Hands Bookstore in Arizona. Michelle has served on the board of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), as well as the ABA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and the board of the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. She received the 2021 BIPOC Bookseller Award for Leadership as well as a 2020 Bookselling Without Borders Fellowship, and was a judge for the 2019 Kirkus Fiction Prize.

Supporters

Supporters

Table Sponsors:

Abrams
American Library Association
Astra House
Audible
Beacon Press
Calvin Sims
Coffee House Press
Creative Artists Agency
Deborah Needleman and Jacob Weisberg
Graywolf Press
Hudson Group
Lucia Ferreira
The New York Times Company
Open Road Integrated Media
PD Villarreal
Simon & Schuster
W. W. Norton & Company

More

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Additional Events:

November 15, 2022: National Book Awards Teen Press Conference
Hosted by Rita Williams-Garcia
(In-person and online event)

November 15, 2022: National Book Awards Finalist Reading
(In-person and online event)
6:30 pm (ET)
New York University, Kimmel Center – Eisner & Lubin Auditorium

NBAwards Ballot
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The 2022 National Book Awards ceremony is presented at no cost. While the broadcast is free, we're asking book lovers like you to support the National Book Foundation’s essential work building a nation of readers with a suggested donation of $50.