The judging panel for this year’s edition of the National Book Awards includes Alan Michael Parker, Emily Pullen, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Charles Yu for Fiction; Eula Biss, Aaron John Curtis, Nell Painter, Kate Tuttle, and Jerald Walker for Nonfiction; Don Mee Choi, Natalie Diaz, Matthea Harvey, A. Van Jordan, and Ilya Kaminsky for Poetry; Jessie Chaffee, Sergio de la Pava, Madhu H. Kaza, Achy Obejas, and Stephen Snyder for Translated Literature; and Pablo Cartaya, Traci Chee, Leslie Connor, Cathryn Mercier, and Ibi Zoboi for Young People’s Literature. The 2021 longlists are as follows:
Fiction
This year’s fiction longlist consists of “writers at all stages of their careers.” The longlisted works are:
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr Matrix by Lauren Groff Abundance by Jakob Guanzon Zorrie by Laird Hunt The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura The Souvenir Museum: Stories by Elizabeth McCracken Hell of a Book by Jason Mott Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Nonfiction
For nonfiction, the longlist showcases “emerging and established writers, and represents an exceptionally wide range of subjects and genres, from American culture and politics, environmentalism, history, current social issues, to works of memoir, and beyond,” according to the National Book Foundation. Here are their books:
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire Tastes Like War: A Memoir by Grace M. Cho The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War by Louis Menand All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis
Poetry
In the poetry category, nine of the 10 poets are first-time nominees except Forrest Gander, whose collection Be With was longlisted in 2018 in the said category. The longlisted titles are:
The Wild Fox of Yemen by Threa Almontaser Ghost Letters by Baba Badji What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. Bailey Master Suffering by CM Burroughs The Vault by Andrés Cerpa Floaters by Martín Espada Twice Alive by Forrest Gander Sho by Douglas Kearney A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void by Jackie Wang
Translated Literature
The 10 books in this category were originally published in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Korean, Russian, and Spanish. Here are the nominated titles:
Waiting for the Waters to Rise by Maryse Condé, translated from the French by Richard Philcox Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei, translated from the Chinese by Canaan Morse The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer On the Origin of Species and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim,translated from the Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort and Sora Kim-Russell When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West Rabbit Island: Stories by Elvira Navarro, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, translated from the German, by Jackie Smith In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price
Young People’s Literature
This category features “titles across genres, topics, and styles with authors based across the United States,” per the news release. The contenders are:
Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People by Kekla Magoon Me (Moth) by Amber McBride The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrations by Floyd Cooper From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoo
Twenty-five finalists will be announced on October 5, and winners for each category will be revealed on November 17 in an in-person awards ceremony in New York City. The winners will each receive $10,000 while each finalist will take home $1,000. The event will also have “virtual elements” that includes a full broadcast. The National Book Awards, which was first held in 1950, are given to outstanding works of literature by American writers. They have been bestowed to authors such as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, John Irving, Alice Walker, Jesmyn Ward, and Colson Whitehead. Browse Book Riot’s archives for more literary awards news, including the Booker Prize.
