The finalists of the 2016 National Book Awards have been announced, and include Colson Whitehead, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Peter Gizzi. Winners will be named at a ceremony in New York City on November 16.
Here, a list of the nominees and a look at PW's complete coverage of their work, including reviews, interviews, and essays.
Fiction
- The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder (Norton)
- News of the World by Paulette Jiles (Morrow)
- The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan (Viking)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
- Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (Amistad)
Nonfiction
- Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild (New Press)
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Nation)
- Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Harvard Univ.)
- The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez (HMH)
- Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson (Pantheon)
Poetry
- The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky (Brooklyn Arts Press)
- Collected Poems 1974–2004 by Rita Dove (Norton)
- Archeophonics by Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan)
- The Abridged History of Rainfall by Jay Hopler (McSweeney's)
- Look by Solmaz Sharif (Graywolf)
Young People's Literature
- Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
- March: Book Three by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illus. by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
- When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
- Ghost by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Dlouhy)
- The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (Delacorte)
