After whittling hundreds of choices down to longlists of 10 last week, the National Book Awards have announced the finalists for their 2018 prizes.
In the Fiction category, previous Fates and Furies finalist Lauren Groff advances to the shortlist for her story collection Florida along with Rebecca Makkai (The Great Believers), Sigrid Nunez (The Friend), and Brandon Hobson (Where the Dead Sit Talking). Among those longlisted who did not make the final cut are breakout debut author Tommy Orange (There There) and American Marriage author Tayari Jones.
Among Nonfiction finalists, standouts include Sarah Smarsh’s pained memoir Heartland and Jeffrey C. Stewart’s Alain Locke biography The New Negro. Finalists were also announced for Poetry, Young People’s Literature, and Translated Literature, a new category which features among its shortlist Booker Prize-winning Flights and the Jhumpa Lahiri-translated Italian novel Trick.
Check out the finalists below. The National Book Awards for 2018 will be announced on Nov. 14.
FICTION
Jamel Brinkley, A Lucky Man
Graywolf Press
Lauren Groff, Florida
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
Brandon Hobson, Where the Dead Sit Talking
Soho Press
Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers
Viking Books / Penguin Random House
Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
NONFICTION
Colin G. Calloway, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation
Oxford University Press
Victoria Johnson, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company
Sarah Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Jeffrey C. Stewart, The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Oxford University Press
Adam Winkler, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
Liveright / W. W. Norton & CompanY
POETRY
Rae Armantrout, Wobble
Wesleyan University Press
Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
Penguin Books / Penguin Random House
Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ghost Of
Omnidawn Publishing
Justin Phillip Reed, Indecency
Coffee House Press
Jenny Xie, Eye Level
Graywolf Press
TRANSLATED LITERATURE
Négar Djavadi, Disoriental
Translated by Tina Kover
Europa Editions
Hanne Ørstavik, Love
Translated by Martin Aitken
Archipelago Books
Domenico Starnone, Trick
Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri
Europa Editions
Yoko Tawada, The Emissary
Translated by Margaret Mitsutani
New Directions Publishing
Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
Translated by Jennifer Croft
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
HarperTeen / HarperCollins Publishers
M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge
Candlewick Press
Leslie Connor, The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
Katherine Tegen Books / HarperCollins Publishers
Christopher Paul Curtis, The Journey of Little Charlie
Scholastic Press / Scholastic, Inc.
Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Hey, Kiddo
Graphix / Scholastic, Inc.
Related content:
- There There, An American Marriage, more make National Book Awards longlist
- This stunning novel about ’80s gay life will break your heart: EW review
- Why Jhumpa Lahiri loves translating Italy’s ‘finest living writer’
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