The National Book Foundation unveiled the longlist for the National Book Award for fiction, with eight of the 10 nominated books coming from authors making their longform fiction debut.
Sarah Thankam Mathews was nominated for All This Could Be Different, her first novel, along with Jonathan Escoffery, who made his debut earlier this month with the short story collection If I Survive You.
Filmmaker and author Fatimah Asghar made the longlist for her forthcoming debut novel, When We Were Sisters, as did first-time novelists Ramona Emerson for Shutter and Tess Gunty for The Rabbit Hutch.
Other debut fiction authors nominated for the award include Leigh Newman for Nobody Gets Out Alive; Marytza K. Rubio for Maria, Maria & Other Stories; and Alejandro Varela for The Town of Babylon.
Gayl Jones, who was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1998 for The Healing, made this year’s longlist with The Birdcatcher, while Jamil Jan Kochai, author of the 2019 novel 99 Nights in Logar, was nominated for his story collection, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories.
The longlists will be winnowed into shortlists, which will be revealed on Oct. 4. The winners of the awards will be announced at a ceremony in New York on Nov. 16.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
