The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards. The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature—will be announced during an awards ceremony on November 20.
Fiction
- Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda (Norton)
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Knopf)
- James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
- All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead)
- My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House)
Nonfiction
- 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)
- Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa (Harper)
Poetry
- Wrong Norma by Anne Carson (New Directions)
- [...] by Fady Joudah (Milkweed)
- mother by m.s. RedCherries (Penguin Books)
- Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss (Graywolf)
- Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (University of Akron Press)
Translated Literature
- 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)
- The Villain's Dance by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from the French by Roland Glasser (Deep Vellum)
- 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)
Young People’s Literature
- Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan (Nancy Paulsen)
- The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky by Josh Galarza (Holt)
- The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow)
- Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi (Putnam)
- The Unboxing of a Black Girl by Angela Shanté (Page Street)
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!, has and will continue to recuse herself from the judging process during discussions of that book, the National Book Foundation confirmed to PW.)
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.
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.
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.
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).
