At a virtual event on January 31, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists, in six categories, for its annual awards honoring the best books of the previous publishing year. In addition, finalists for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book were announced. Other announcements included the winner of the annual prize for a working book critic, a lifetime achievement award, the Toni Morrison Achievement award for an institution, and the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize and NBCC Service Award.The awards for publishing year 2022 will be presented on March 23 at the New School in New York City, in a ceremony that will be free and open to the public.
The announced finalists and winners are as follows:
Autobiography
- Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes by Jazmina Barrera, translated by Christina McSweeney (Two Lines)
- Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)
- A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast by Dorthe Nors, translated by Caroline Waight (Graywolf)
- Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan by Darryl Pinckney (FSG)
- The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Doubleday)
Biography
- G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage (Viking)
- The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge (Liveright)
- Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans (Random House)
- Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (Doubleday)
- Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Louis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs (Princeton UP)
Criticism
- Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv (FSG)
- Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age by Timothy Bewes (Columbia UP)
- Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative by Peter Brooks (NYRB)
- Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon)
- When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated by Sophie Hughes (Coffee House)
Fiction
- Dr. No by Percival Everett (Graywolf)
- A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls (Transit)
- All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd (Europa)
- Bliss Montage: Stories by Ling Ma (FSG)
- The Furrows by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)
Nonfiction
- The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act by Isaac Butler (Bloomsbury)
- Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernandez (Norton)
- Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between by Joseph Osmundson (Norton)
- Fen, Bog, & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx (Scribner)
- An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (Random House)
Poetry
- Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Most Abu Toha (City Lights)
- Hotel Oblivion by Cynthia Cruz (Four Way)
- Hello I Must Be Going by David Hernandez (University of Pittsburgh)
- banana [ ] by Paul Hlava Ceballos (University of Pittsburgh)
- Milkweed Smithereens by Bernadette Mayer (New Directions)
Greg Barrios Book in Translation Prize (Inaugural)
- Boris Dralyuk's translation of Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov (Deep Vellum)
- Jennifer Croft's translation of The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead)
- Fady Joudah's translation of You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat (Milkweed)
- Mara Fay Lethem's translation of When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà (Graywolf)
- Christina MacSweeney’s translation of Linea Nigra by Jazmina Barrera (Two Lines)
- Mark Polizzotti’s translation of Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga (Archipelago)
John Leonard Prize
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (Mary Sue Rucci)
- If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (MCD)
- The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty (Knopf)
- Brother Alive by Zain Khalid (Grove Atlantic)
- Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton (Random House)
- Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House)
- The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara (Norton)
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
- Jennifer Wilson
Toni Morrison Achievement Award
- City Lights Booksellers & Publishers
NBCC Service Award
- Barbara Hoffert
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
- Joy Harjo
This article has been updated with further information.
