The National Book Foundation has announced its 2024 National Book Award longlists. Five finalists in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature—will be named October 1. The winners will be announced during an awards ceremony in New York City on November 20.
Fiction
- Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda (Norton)
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Knopf)
- The Most by Jessica Anthony (Little, Brown)
- Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (One World)
- James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
- All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead)
- Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)
- My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House)
- Yr Dead by Sam Sax (McSweeney's)
- Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (William Morrow)
A total of 671 books were submitted for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. The judges are Jamie Ford, Lauren Groff (chair), Zeyn Joukhadar, Chawa Magaña, and Reginald McKnight. (Groff, who read and contributed edits to an early draft of Martyr!, recused herself from the judging process during discussions of that book, and will do so going forward, the National Book Foundation confirmed.)
Nonfiction
- There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)
- Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us
- Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle (Random House)
- Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León (Viking)
- Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church by Eliza Griswold (FSG)
- Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne (Crown)
- Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Random House)
- The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheyder (One Signal)
- A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America by Richard Slotkin (Belknap Press)
- Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa (Harper)
- Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal (Tiny Reparations Books)
A total of 671 books were submitted for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The judges are Brenda J. Child, Anand Giridharadas, Tressie McMillan Cottom (chair), Timothy Morton, and Arvin Ramgoolam.
Poetry
- Wrong Norma by Anne Carson (New Directions)
- [...] by Fady Joudah (Milkweed)
- Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux (Norton)
- Spectral Evidence by Gregory Pardlo (Knopf)
- Silver by Rowan Ricardo Phillips (FSG)
- The Book of Wounded Sparrows by Octavio Quintanilla (Texas Review)
- mother by m.s. RedCherries (Penguin Books)
- Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss (Graywolf)
- Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (University of Akron Press)
- Liontaming in America by Elizabeth Willis (New Directions)
A total of 299 books were submitted for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. The judges are Richard Blanco (chair), Carolyn Forché, Tyehimba Jess, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Rena Priest.
Translated Literature
- The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom by Nasser Abu Srour, translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren (Other Press)
- The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain (Restless)
- Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel (Knopf)
- On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions)
- Woodworm by Layla Martínez, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott (Two Lines)
- The Villain's Dance by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from the French by Roland Glasser (Deep Vellum)
- Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Scribner)
- The Abyss by Fernando Vallejo, translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert (New Directions)
- Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King (Graywolf)
- Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price (World Editions)
A total of 141 books were submitted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The judges are Aron Aji, Jennifer Croft, Jhumpa Lahiri (Chair), Gary Lovely, and Julia Sanches.
Young People’s Literature
- Ariel Crashes a Train by Olivia A. Cole (Labyrinth Road)
- Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan (Nancy Paulsen)
- Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle (Atheneum)
- The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky by Josh Galarza (Holt)
- The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow)
- Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay (Kokila)
- Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi (Putnam)
- The Unboxing of a Black Girl by Angela Shanté (Page Street)
- Free Period by Ali Terese (Scholastic)
- Mid Air by Alicia D. Williams (Caitlyn Dlouhy)
A total of 333 books were submitted for the 2024 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The judges are Rose Brock, Huda Fahmy, Leah Johnson, Mike Jung, and Brein Lopez (chair).