Announcement of the 2023 National Book Award Finalists

The National Book Foundation has unveiled the finalists for the 2023 National Book Awards across five distinct categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature.

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Among the twenty-five finalists, five exceptional authors will emerge as winners, to be officially announced on Wednesday, November 15 at the 74th National Book Awards ceremony. This prestigious event will feature special guests including Oprah Winfrey, Rita Dove, and Paul Yamazaki.

National Book

Each finalist will be awarded $1,000 along with a distinguished bronze medal. Furthermore, the winners in each category will receive the coveted prize of $10,000, in addition to a bronze medal and a commemorative statue. It’s worth noting that in the Translated Literature category, the prize money will be divided between the author and the translator.

Here are the accomplished finalists in each category:

FICTION

1. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah – Chain-Gang All-Stars (Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House)
2. Aaliyah Bilal – Temple Folk (Simon & Schuster)
3. Paul Harding – This Other Eden (W. W. Norton & Company)
4. Hanna Pylväinen – The End of Drum-Time (Henry Holt and Company / Macmillan Publishers)
5. Justin Torres – Blackouts (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)

NONFICTION

1. Ned Blackhawk – The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press)
2. Cristina Rivera Garza – Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice (Hogarth / Penguin Random House)
3. Christina Sharpe – Ordinary Notes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)
4. Raja Shehadeh – We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir (Other Press)
5. John Vaillant – Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf / Penguin Random House)

POETRY

1. John Lee Clark – How to Communicate (W. W. Norton & Company)
2. Craig Santos Perez – from unincorporated territory [åmot] (Omnidawn Publishing)
3. Evie Shockley – suddenly we (Wesleyan University Press)
4. Brandon Som – Tripas (Georgia Review Books / University of Georgia Press)
5. Monica Youn – From From (Graywolf Press)

TRANSLATED LITERATURE

1. Bora Chung – Cursed Bunny (Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur) (Algonquin Books / Hachette Book Group)
2. David Diop – Beyond the Door of No Return (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)
3. Stênio Gardel – The Words That Remain (Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato) (New Vessel Press)
4. Pilar Quintana – Abyss (Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman) (World Editions)
5. Astrid Roemer – On a Woman’s Madness (Translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott) (Two Lines Press)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

1. Kenneth M. Cadow – Gather (Candlewick Press)
2. Huda Fahmy – Huda F Cares? (Dial Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House)
3. Vashti Harrison – Big (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers / Hachette Book Group)
4. Katherine Marsh – The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine (Roaring Brook Press / Macmillan Publishers)
5. Dan Santat – A First Time for Everything (First Second / Macmillan Publishers)

These distinguished finalists represent the pinnacle of literary excellence, and the National Book Awards ceremony promises to be a momentous occasion for the literary world.