The finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards were announced on Tuesday. The winners will be announced on November 16. As a group, independent publishers have 11 nominations (dominating the poetry and translated literature categories); Penguin Random House imprints claim 10 nominations; and the rest of the big five share just 4 among them (with no candidates from Macmillan).
Fiction
Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch (Knopf)
Gayl Jones, The Birdcatcher (Beacon Press)
Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories (Viking)
Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different (Viking)
Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon (Astra House)
Nonfiction
Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (Riverhead)
Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (Ecco)
David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus (Simon & Schuster)
Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir (Doubleday)
Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking)
Poetry
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Look at This Blue (Coffee House Press)
John Keene, Punks: New & Selected Poems (The Song Cave)
Sharon Olds, Balladz (Alfred A. Knopf)
Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian (Norton)
Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense (Graywolf Press)
Translated Literature
A New Name: Septology VI-VII, by Jon Fosse, trans. from the Norwegian by Damion Searls (Transit Books)
Kibogo, by Scholastique Mukasonga, trans. from the French by Mark Polizzotti (Archipelago)
Jawbone, by Mónica Ojeda, trans. from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (Coffee House)
Seven Empty Houses, by Samanta Schweblin, trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead)
Scattered All Over the Earth, by Yoko Tawada, trans. from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani (New Directions)
Young People’s Literature
Kelly Barnhill, The Ogress and the Orphans (Algonquin Young Readers)
Sonora Reyes, The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School (Balzer + Bray)
Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! (Norton Young Readers)
Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage (Razorbill)
Lisa Yee, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance (Random House Books for Young Readers)
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