National Book Foundation Announces Finalists for 69th Annual Award

The National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the 69th annual National Book Awards on Wednesday, with a stylistically and thematically diverse group of 25 finalists in five categories — fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature and translated literature.

Fiction finalists included Lauren Groff, for her short story collection, “Florida”; Rebecca Makkai for her acclaimed novel “The Great Believers”; and the debut author Jamel Brinkley, for his collection “A Lucky Man”; while Sarah Smarsh’s memoir “Heartland” and Jeffrey C. Stewart’s biography of Alain Locke made the nonfiction shortlist.

The finalists for young people’s literature included a novel in verse by Elizabeth Acevedo, about a Dominican teenager who learns to express herself through slam poetry, and a young adult graphic memoir by Jarrett J. Krosoczka that reveals his mother’s struggle with heroin addiction.

This year, the foundation opened up the awards to works in translation, marking the first time in decades that the National Book Foundation has recognized international authors and translators.

International finalists include Négar Djavadi, an Iranian-born screenwriter and debut novelist who lives in Paris; Yoko Tawada, a Japanese novelist who lives in Germany and writes in both Japanese and German; and the Italian writer Domenico Starnone, whose work was translated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri.

Winners will be announced Nov. 14 at a ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.

Below, a complete list of the finalists.

Fiction

Jamel Brinkley, “A Lucky Man” Graywolf Press

Lauren Groff, “Florida” Riverhead Books

Brandon Hobson, “Where the Dead Sit Talking” Soho Press

Rebecca Makkai, “The Great Believers” Viking Books

Sigrid Nunez, “The Friend” Riverhead Books

Nonfiction

Colin C. 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

Sarah Smarsh, “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth” Scribner

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

Poetry

Rae Armantrout, “Wobble” Wesleyan University Press

Terrance Hayes, “American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin” Penguin Books

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

Young People’s Literature

Elizabeth Acevedo, “The Poet X” HarperTeen / HarperCollins

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

Christopher Paul Curtis, “The Journey of Little Charlie” Scholastic Press / Scholastic, Inc.

Jarrett J. Krosoczka, “Hey, Kiddo” Graphix / Scholastic, Inc.