All the Finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards

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  • September 13, 2024

Earlier this week we covered the 2024 National Book Awards Longlists for Young People’s Literature and Translated Literature. Now the longlists for Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fiction have also been released, rounding out all the contenders for this year’s awards.

The National Book Awards were first established in 1950 to celebrate the best writing in the United States and have been overseen by the National Book Foundation since 1989. Submissions for each year’s awards open in mid-march and close in mid-May. To qualify for consideration, books must have been published in the United States between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year.

The shortlists for all five categories will be released early next month on Tuesday, October 1. The winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony ceremony on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.

Here are the longlist titles for Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fiction along with the judges for each category.

Nonfiction

Judges: Brenda J. Chiild, Anand Anand Giridharadas, Tressie McMillan Cottom (chair), Timothy Morton, Arvin Ramgoolam

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle

Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León

Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church by Eliza Griswold

Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheyder

A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America by Richard Slotkin

Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa

Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

Poetry

Judges: Richard Blanco (chair), Carolyn Forché, Tyehimba Jess, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Rena Priest

Wrong Norma by Anne Carson

[…]: Poems by Fady Joudah

Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux

Spectral Evidence by Gregory Pardlo

Silver by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

The Book of Wounded Sparrows by Octavio Quintanilla

mother by m.s. RedCherries

Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss

Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Liontaming in America by Elizabeth Willis

Fiction

Judges: Jamie Ford, Lauren Groff (chair), Zeyn Joukhadar, Chawa Magaña, Reginald McKnight

Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

The Most by Jessica Anthony

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

James by Percival Everett

All Fours by Miranda July

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

My Friends by Hisham Matar

Yr Dead by Sam Sax

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Young People’s Literature

See the longlist here.

Translated Literature

See the longlist here.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

Source : All the Finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards