The NBCC named finalists for its annual awards, with the winners to be announced on March 21. The recipient of the 2023 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing is Washington Post nonfiction book critic Becca Rothfeld. The recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Judy Blume. The recipient of the Toni Morrison Achievement Award, which honors “institutions that have made lasting and meaningful contributions to book culture,” is the American Library Association. The finalists for the other awards (titles excerpted in our Buzz Books anthology are noted with a *):
Autobiography
Susan Kiyo Ito, I Would Meet You Anywhere (The Ohio State University Press)
David Mas Masumoto, with artwork by Patricia Wakida, Secret Harvests (Red Hen Press)
Ahmed Naji, Rotten Evidence, translated by Katharine Halls (McSweeney’s)
Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon (Simon & Schuster)*
Matthew Zapruder, Story of a Poem (Unnamed Press)
Biography
Jonathan Eig, King (Farrar, Straus)*
Gregg Hecimovich, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts (Ecco)
Yunte Huang, Daughter of the Dragon (Liveright)
Rachel Shteir, Betty Friedan (Yale University Press)
Jonny Steinberg, Winnie and Nelson (Knopf)
Criticism
Nicholas Dames, The Chapter (Princeton University Press)
Myriam Gurba, Creep (Avid Reader Press)
Naomi Klein, Doppelganger (Farrar, Straus)
Grace E. Lavery, Pleasure and Efficacy (Princeton University Press)
Tina Post, Deadpan (NYU Press)
Fiction
Teju Cole, Tremor (Random House)
Daniel Mason, North Woods (Random House)
Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home (Knopf)
Marie NDiaye, Vengeance Is Mine, translated by Jordan Stump (Knopf)
Justin Torres, Blackouts (Farrar, Straus)*
Nonfiction
Roxanna Asgarian, We Were Once a Family (Farrar, Straus)
Kerry Howley, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs (Knopf)
Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes (Farrar, Straus)
Jeff Sharlet, The Undertow (Norton)
Dina Nayeri, Who Gets Believed? When the Truth Isn’t Enough (Catapult Books)
Poetry
Saskia Hamilton, All Souls (Graywolf Press)
Kim Hyesoon, Phantom Pain Wings, translated by Don Mee Choi (New Directions)
Romeo Oriogun, The Gathering of Bastards (University of Nebraska Press)
Robyn Schiff, Information Desk (Penguin)
Charif Shanahan, Trace Evidence (Tin House)
Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize
Kareem Abdulrahman’s translation of The Last Pomegranate Tree by Bachtyar Ali (Archipelago Books)
Natascha Bruce’s translation of Owlish by Dorothy Tse (Graywolf Press)
Don Mee Choi’s translation of Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon (New Directions)
Todd Fredson’s translation of Zakwato & Loglêdou’s Peril by Azo Vauguy (Action Books)
Maureen Freely’s translation of Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü (Transit Books)
Tiffany Tsao’s translation of Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Feminist Press)
John Leonard Prize
Ariana Benson, Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press)
Emilie Boone, A Nimble Arc (Duke University Press)
Victor Heringer, The Love of Singular Men, translated by James Young (New Directions)
Tahir Hamut Izgil, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, translated by Joshua L. Freeman (Penguin Press)
Donovan X. Ramsey, When Crack Was King (One World)
Martin J. Siegel, Judgment and Mercy (Cornell University Press)
NBCC Service Award
Marion Winik
|