Bryan Washington, Rabih Alameddine and Karen Russell are among the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards.
The three authors will compete in the fiction category alongside Megha Majumdar and Ethan Rutherford. Last year’s prize was handed to Percival Everett for James, his reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Washington is nominated for Palaver, a still-unreleased novel about the relationship between a man and his estranged mother; Alameddine, who was previously a finalist in this category in 2014, is nominated for sprawling family saga The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother); and Russell is up for The Antidote, a story set in a 1930s Nebraska town. Majumdar is up for A Guardian and a Thief and Rutherford for North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther.
The non-fiction category includes Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This about American and European complicity in the destruction of Gaza.
He will be up against Julia Ioffe for Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, Yiyun Li for Things in Nature Merely Grow, Claudia Rowe for Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care and Jordan Thomas for When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World. The authors in this category are all first-time finalists.
Poetry finalists are Gabrielle Calvocoressi for The New Economy, Cathy Linh Che for Becoming Ghost, Tiana Clark for Scorched Earth, Richard Siken for I Do Know Some Things and Patricia Smith for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems.
The finalists for young people’s literature are Kyle Lukoff for A World Worth Saving, Amber McBride for The Leaving Room, Daniel Nayeri for The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story, Hannah V Sawyerr for Truth Is and Ibi Zoboi for (S)Kin. It marks the second time McBride, Lukoff and Zoboi have been nominated in this category.
The category for translated literature features Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell’s translation of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), Robin Myers’s translation of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s We Are Green and Trembling, David McKay’s translation of Anjet Daanje’s The Remembered Soldier, Shelley Fairweather-Vega’s translation of Hamid Ismailov’s We Computers: A Ghazal Novel and Natasha Lehrer’s translation of Neige Sinno, Sad Tiger.
Publishers submitted a total of 1,835 books with the majority of titles in the non-fiction category. This year’s ceremony will also include lifetime achievement awards for Roxane Gay and George Saunders.
The National Book Awards will take place on 18 November in New York.
The full list:-
Fiction:
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove)
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Knopf)
The Antidote by Karen Russell (Knopf)
North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford (A Strange Object)
Palaver by Bryan Washington (FSG)
A total of 434 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction, which will be judged by Rumaan Alam (Chair), Debra Magpie Earling, Attica Locke, Elizabeth McCracken, and Cody Morrison.
Nonfiction
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy by Julia Ioffe (Ecco)
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (FSG)
Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care by Claudia Rowe (Abrams)
When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas (Riverhead)
A total of 652 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The judges are Heather Kathleen Moody Hall, Tiya Miles (Chair), Raj Patel, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Eli Saslow. In the announcement, the National Book Foundation noted that the nonfiction finalists are all first-time honorees.
Poetry
The New Economy by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (Copper Canyon)
Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che (Washington Square)
Scorched Earth by Tiana Clark (Washington Square)
I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken (Copper Canyon)
The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith (Scribner)
A total of 285 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry. The judges are Kate Daniels, Terrance Hayes (Chair), H. Melt, Anis Mojgani, and Caridad Moro-Gronlier.
Translated Literature
On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Directions)
We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers (New Directions)
The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from the Dutch by David McKay (New Vessel)
We Computers: A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov, translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Yale)
Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer (Seven Stories)
A total of 139 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The judges are Stesha Brandon (Chair), Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, Bill Johnston, Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel, and Karen Tei Yamashita.
Young People’s Literature
A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff (Dial)
The Leaving Room by Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends)
The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido)
Truth Is by Hannah V. Sawyerr (Amulet)
(S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi (Versify)
A total of 325 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The judges are Cathy Berner, David Bowles (Chair), candice iloh, Jung Kim, and Maulik Pancholy.
The winners in each category will receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and statue, and finalists will receive $1,000 each.
