The mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature in America. NBF is guided by the belief that books and literature are for everyone, no matter the geographic location, level of economics, or ethnicity of the readers.
Click on the highlighted titles for more information about the books.
The winners are highlighted in red.
Fiction:
- Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind
- Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible
- Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
- Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain
- Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown
Nonfiction:
- Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans
- Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
- Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
- Jenn Shapland, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
- Jerald Walker, How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
Young People’s Literature:
- Kacen Callender, King and the Dragonflies
- Traci Chee, We Are Not Free
- Candice Iloh, Every Body Looking
- Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, When Stars Are Scattered
- Gavriel Savit, The Way Back
Finalists for Translated Literature: (Recently, I had occasion to read a book in a language that was not my native tongue. I had a copy of the original on my shelf and compared the two. While 90% of the book was beautifully translated, there were sections where the translator didn’t quite ‘get’ the nuances of the language. Bravo to those translators that do it well, because it can make all the difference in the reader’s perception of the original intent of the author.)
- Anja Kampmann, High as the Waters Rise
Translated from the German by Anne Posten - Jonas Hassen Khemiri, The Family Clause
Translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies - Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
Translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles - Pilar Quintana, The Bitch
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman - Adania Shibli, Minor Detail
Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners!
