Ever the fans of the dramatic, the National Book Awards are drip-feeding us their nominations for the best books of the year. The nominations for Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature have all been announced, and we’re looking forward to bringing you the announcement of the Fiction long list tomorrow, after the announcement is made around 10:00am EST.
The nominations this year reflect the surge of new talent and diverse voices that we have been fortunate enough to enjoy in our reading this year. Among the poetry long list, only one author has previously won (Terrance Hayes; Pulitzer-Prize winner Rae Armantrout was nominated in 2009).
This year also marks the first award for translated literature, a sign that the award itself is hearing the multitude of voices telling stories around us. Not only are the authors themselves telling stories from a range of different locations and in a number of different languages, but seven of the titles were also put out by independent presses, highlighting how publishing itself is changing around us, as well. It’s a heady time to be a reader, beloved patrons, and we are 100% on board for all the fun!
So here, without further ado, are the current National Book Award long lists. We look forward to adding to this list in the coming days, and seeing how the awards program progresses to the final announcement of the National Book Awards on November 14!
A note: If you click the link in the authors’ names, you will be taken to the National Book Award website for that writer. If you are looking to locate the books in our library catalog, please click on the book’s title where a link is available.
Poetry:
- Rae Armantrout, Wobble
- Jos Charles, feeld
- Forrest Gander, Be With (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
- J. Michael Martinez, Museum of the Americas (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ghost Of (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Justin Phillip Reed, Indecency (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Raquel Salas Rivera, lo terciario / the tertiary
- Natasha Trethewey, Monument: Poems New and Selected (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Jenny Xie, Eye Level
Translated Literature:
- Négar Djavadi, Disoriental
Translated by Tina Kover - Roque Larraquy, Comemadre
Translated by Heather Cleary - Dunya Mikhail, The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq
Translated by Max Weiss and Dunya Mikhail - Perumal Murugan, One Part Woman
Translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan - Hanne Ørstavik, Love
Translated by Martin Aitken - Gunnhild Øyehaug, Wait, Blink: A Perfect Picture of Inner Life
Translated by Kari Dickson - Domenico Starnone, Trick
Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri - Yoko Tawada, The Emissary
Translated by Margaret Mitsutani - Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
Translated by Jennifer Croft - Tatyana Tolstaya, Aetherial Worlds
Translated by Anya Migdal
Young People’s Literature
- Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
- M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge
- Bryan Bliss, We’ll Fly Away (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Leslie Connor, The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
- Christopher Paul Curtis, The Journey of Little Charlie
- Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Hey, Kiddo
- Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea
- Joy McCullough, Blood Water Paint
- Elizabeth Partridge, Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietnam (Please check in with a Public Service Staff member to access this title)
- Vesper Stamper, What the Night Sings
Congratulations to all the long-listed authors and their sensational books!