The National Book Critics Circle revealed the winners of its annual awards Thursday evening at a ceremony in New York.
Winning the autobiography prize was Patriot, written by the late Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny and translated by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel. Accepting the award on behalf of Navalny, who died in a Russian prison last year, was Knopf publisher and editor-in-chief Jordan Pavlin, who said, “How incredibly heartbreaking that a book written in the depths of Russia’s prisons and penal colonies has become uncannily relevant to America in 2025 as we confront the rise of a fascist and authoritarian government.”
The fiction prize went to Hisham Matar for My Friends, which was previously a finalist for the National Book Award. Adam Higginbotham received the nonfiction award for his Kirkus Prize–winning Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.
Hanif Abdurraqib was the winner in the criticism category for There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, while Cynthia Carr took home the biography prize for Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. The poetry award went to Anne Carson for Wrong Norma.
The winner of the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize was A Last Supper of Queer Apostles, written by the late Pedro Lemebel and translated by Gwendolyn Harper. The John Leonard Prize, given to an outstanding first book in any genre, went to Tessa Hulls for her graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts, a Kirkus Prize finalist last year.
This was the 50th year of the National Book Critics Circle Awards, which are voted on by the professional organization of book review writers and editors. Previous NBCC award winners include Toni Morrison for Song of Solomon, Isabel Wilkerson for The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, and Chanel Miller for Know My Name.
Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.
