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The National Book Foundation has announced the 2020 National Book Awards finalists! The list of finalists is already being described as fresh and timely, with “books about race and the struggle for equality feature[d] prominently” and two novels “with eerie echoes of world catastrophes.” Notably, none of the authors has been a finalist for a National Book Award before and almost a third are debuts.
The winners in each of the five categories—Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction—will be announced November 18, 2020, in a virtual ceremony. Acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley will receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Carolyn Reidy, the late Simon & Schuster CEO, will be honored with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
Fiction
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Nonfiction
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland
How to Make a Slave and Other Essays by Jerald Walker
Poetry
A Treatise on Stars by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Fantasia for the Man in Blue by Tommye Blount
DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Translated Literature
High as the Waters Rise by Anja Kampmann, translated by Anne Posten
The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, translated by Alice Menzies
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles
The Bitch by Pilar Quintana, translated by Lisa Dillman
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
Young People’s Literature
King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh
When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
The Way Back by Gavriel Savit
Curious about the other nominated titles? Looking for more great recommendations? Check out the 2020 National Book Awards Longlists.