By Eileen Wang
Out of the fifty nominees, twenty-five, with five each for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature, have been selected to be finalists in this year’s National Book Awards.
Between all five categories, two of the twenty-five contenders have previously received honors from the National Book Awards. Lydia Millet was Longlisted in 2016 for her novel, Sweet Lamb of Heaven, and Charles Yu, author of Third Class Superhero, was an honoree of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award in 2007. Eight of the twenty-five finalists are debuts.
Charles Yu’s deeply personal novel, Interior Chinatown, about race, pop culture, as well as immigration, and assimilation, is one of works being considered for the fiction award. The other four finalists for fiction include, Lydia Millet, for The Children’s Bible, Rumaan Alam, for Leave the World Behind, Deesha Philyaw, for The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, and Douglas Stuart, for Shuggie Bain.
Claudio Saunt’s Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory, about the unsettling history of the forced migration and removal of Native Americans in the 1830s, is one of the finalists for the nonfiction award. The other four finalists for nonfiction include, The Dead are Arising, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, by Jenn Shapland, The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, and How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, by Jerald Walker.
Don Mee Choi’s DMZ Colony, about the unheard voices from the Korean War and the Park Chung Hee military dictatorship in South Korea, as well as her own personal history, is one of the contenders for the poetry award. The other four finalists for poetry include, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s A Treatise on Stars, Tommye Blount’s Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Anthony Cody’s Borderland Apocrypha, and Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem.
Pilar Quintana’s The Bitch, about both beauty and dread in a poignant exploration of motherhood and love, is one of the finalists for the translated literature award. The other four finalists for translated literature include, Anja Kampmann’s High as the Waters Rise, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Family Clause, Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, and Adania Shibili’s Minor Detail.
Candice Iloh’s Every Body Looking, about immigration and a young girl’s struggle to find her place in both her family and America, is one of the contenders for the young people’s literature award. The other four finalists for young people’s literature include Kacen Callender, for King and the Dragonflies, Traci Chee, for We Are Not Free, Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, for When Stars are Scattered, and Gavriel Savit, for The Way Back.
The winners in each category will be announced on November 18th at the 71st National Book Awards Ceremony held exclusively online. Two lifetime achievement awards will also be presented at the ceremony. Novelist Walter Mosley will receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and the chief executive of Simon and Shuster who passed in May at the age of 71, Caroline Reidy, will posthumously receive the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
Fiction Finalists:
- Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind
- Lydia Millet, A Children’s Bible
- Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
- Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain
- Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown
Nonfiction Finalists:
- Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans
- Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
- Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
- Jenn Shapland, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
- Jerald Walker, How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
Poetry Finalists:
- Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, A Treatise on Stars
- Tommye Blount, Fantasia for the Man in Blue
- Don Mee Choi, DMZ Colony
- Anthony Cody, Borderland Apocrypha
- Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
Translated Literature:
- Anja Kampmann, High as the Waters Rise
- Translated from the German by Anne Posten
- Jonas Hassen Khemiri, The Family Clause
- Translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies
- Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
- Translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles
- Pilar Quintana, The Bitch
- Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
- Adania Shibli, Minor Detail
- Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
Young People’s Literature:
- Kacen Callender, King and the Dragonflies
- Traci Chee, We are not Free
- Candice Iloh, Every Body Looking
- Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, When Stars are Scattered
- Gavriel Savit, The Way Back
