• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login
  • Register
Publishers Lunch logo Publishers Lunch logo
  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help
Login Sign Up
  • Personnel
  • AI
  • Compensation
  • Unions
  • Book Bans
  • New Releases
  • Earnings
  • The Trial
  • Archives
Publishers Lunch logo
  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help
  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help

October 7, 2025By Erin Somers

National Book Awards Shortlists

October 7, 2025By Erin Somers

The National Book Awards announced finalists, with the winners to be named on November 19:

Fiction
Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (Grove Atlantic)
Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf)
Karen Russell, The Antidote (Knopf)
Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther (A Strange Object)
Bryan Washington, Palaver (FSG, publishes November 4)

Nonfiction
Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Knopf)
Julia Ioffe, Motherland (Ecco)
Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow (FSG)
Claudia Rowe, Wards of the State (Abrams)
Jordan Thomas, When It All Burns (Riverhead)

Young People’s Literature
Kyle Lukoff, A World Worth Saving (Dial)
Amber McBride, The Leaving Room (Feiwel & Friends)
Daniel Nayeri, The Teacher of Nomad Land (Levine Querido)
Hannah V. Sawyerr, Truth Is (Amulet)
Ibi Zoboi, (S)Kin (Versify)

Translation
Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Directions)
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, We Are Green and Trembling, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers (New Directions)
Anjet Daanje, The Remembered Soldier, translated from the Dutch by David McKay (New Vessel)
Hamid Ismailov, We Computers: A Ghazal Novel, translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Yale)
Neige Sinno, Sad Tiger, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer (Seven Stories)

Poetry
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, The New Economy (Copper Canyon)
Cathy Linh Che, Becoming Ghost (Washington Square)
Tiana Clark, Scorched Earth (Washington Square)
Richard Siken, I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon)
Patricia Smith, The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner)

Filed Under: Awards

sidebar

Primary Free Sidebar

Login

Forgot Password Quick Pass User Login
Get Full Access
The Publishing Industry’s Essential Daily Read

Each Publishers Lunch Deluxe subscription includes full access to our searchable multi-year archive of industry news, a nightly email reporting 10 to 50 deal transactions, and our database of industry contacts, scripts, and posting privileges.

Learn More

RSS Automat

  • How the New York Times Picks Its Top 10 Books of the Year December 15, 2025 NYT
  • "Storyteller" Has Become a High-Paying Corporate Job: We Call It Author or Writer December 12, 2025 WSJ
  • Little Golden Books Doubles Down with "Taylor & Travis Forever" Interactive Wedding Planning Book December 12, 2025 PRH site
  • Taylor Swift Listened To GOD OF THE WOODS in Her Eras Tour Docuseries December 12, 2025 Cosmopolitan
  • OpenAI-Disney Deal Licenses Characters to AI Video Generator December 11, 2025 Press Release
  • Media Insider Books Almost Never Sell: Olivia Nuzzi's Book Sells Under 1,200 Hardcovers In Opening Week December 11, 2025 Bookscan, via Forbes
  • Harper's Bazaar's Best Books of the Year December 11, 2025 Harper's Bazaar
  • James Patterson Is Giving His Traditional $500 to 600 Booksellers December 11, 2025 AP
  • McGraw-Hill Pays Down Another $50 Million of Debt December 11, 2025 Press release
  • Cuomo Continues to Fight Investigation of His $5.1 Million Book Bonanza in Fresh Lawsuit December 11, 2025 Albany Times Union
Publishers Marketplace logo

Contact Us

News

  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Report News
  • Discuss
  • Classifieds
  • Rights Offerings

Deals

  • Report A Deal

Books

  • Buzz Books

Jobs

  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy Terms of Use