The National Book Awards announced this year’s shortlists, with 25 titles in contention for the prestigious literary prizes.
Miranda July was named a finalist in the fiction category for All Fours, while Percival Everett made the shortlist for James, his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn retelling that has been named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Booker Prize as well. Also shortlisted in fiction were ’Pemi Aguda for Ghostroots, Kaveh Akbar for Martyr!, and Hisham Matar for My Friends.
Salman Rushdie made the nonfiction shortlist for his memoir Knife, alongside Jason De León for Soldiers and Kings, Eliza Griswold for Circle of Hope, Kate Manne for Unshrinking, and Deborah Jackson Taffa for Whiskey Tender.
The books making the young people’s literature shortlist were Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky by Josh Galarza, The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly, Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi, and The Unboxing of a Black Girl by Angela Shanté.
In translated literature, the finalists were The Book Censor’s Library, written by Bothayna Al-Essa and translated by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain; Ædnan, written by Linnea Axelsson and translated by Saskia Vogel; The Villain’s Dance, written by Fiston Mwanza Mujila and translated by Roland Glasser; Taiwan Travelogue, written by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King; and Where the Wind Calls Home, written by Samar Yazbek and translated by Leri Price.
Making the poetry shortlist were Anne Carson for Wrong Norma, Fady Joudah for [...], m.s. RedCherries for mother; Diane Seuss for Modern Poetry, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha for Something About Living.
The winners of the awards will be announced at a ceremony in New York on Nov. 20.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
