The 2024 National Book Awards is tonight: See finalists for fiction, nonfiction, more
Book lovers, listen up: It’s time for the literary world’s most coveted night – the 2024 National Book Awards.
Twenty-five finalists, announced Oct. 1, will vie for the prize in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature. The winning titles will receive $10,000, a bronze medal and a statue. Finalists will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.
National Book Awards winners will be announced at a Nov. 20 awards ceremony in New York, hosted by Kate McKinnon with musical guest Jon Batiste. The event will be broadcast live on YouTube, Facebook and the National Book Foundation’s website.
2024 National Book Awards finalists: Full list
The National Book Awards have been honoring the best in literature since 1950.
Notable past winners include William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker and Ta-Nehisi Coates. This year's finalists come from more than 1,900 works submitted by publishers. Five of the 25 titles are debuts and 10 university or independent publishers are represented, according to the foundation's news release.
Here's the full list:
Finalists for fiction
- “Ghostroots” by 'Pemi Aguda
- “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar
- “James” by Percival Everett
- “All Fours” by Miranda July
- “My Friends” by Hisham Matar
Finalists for nonfiction
- “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling” by Jason De León
- “Circle of Hope: A Reckoning With Love, Power and Justice in an American Church” by Eliza Griswold
- “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia” by Kate Manne
- “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” by Salman Rushdie
- "Whiskey Tender" by Deborah Jackson Taffa
Finalists for poetry
- “Wrong Norma” by Anne Carson
- “[...]” by Fady Joudah
- “mother” by m.s. RedCherries
- “Modern Poetry” by Diane Seuss
- “Something About Living” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Finalists for translated literature:
- “The Book Censor’s Library” by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain
- “Ædnan” by Linnea Axelsson, translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
- “The Villain’s Dance” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from French by Roland Glasser
- “Taiwan Travelogue” by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King
- “Where the Wind Calls Home” by Samar Yazbek, translated from Arabic by Leri Price
Finalists for young people’s literature
- “Buffalo Dreamer” by Violet Duncan
- “The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky” by Josh Galarza
- “The First State of Being” by Erin Entrada Kelly
- “Kareem Between” by Shifa Saltagi Safadi
- “The Unboxing of a Black Girl” by Angela Shanté
How to watch the National Book Awards
The National Book Awards ceremony begins at 8 p.m. EST on Nov. 20. Watch the live broadcast from the National Book Foundation:
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