This year’s National Book Award Nominees have been announced and include incredible authors. The five categories each contain five nominees. Authors like Gayl Jones, Scholastique Mukasonga, and Pulitzer winner Sharon Olds are returning finalists. On the other hand, translator Margaret Mitsutani returns as a nominee with Yoko Tawada after winning the National Book Award for translated literature in 2018.
And while we have National Book Award veterans on the roster, three authors in the fiction category are nominated with their debut novels – Sarah Tess Gunty, Sarah Thankam Mathews, and Alejandro Varela. Additionally, all five nominees in the young people’s literature category are nominated for the first time ever.
The winners of this year’s award get $10,000 and will be announced on Nov. 16 in New York City. At the same time, two crucial figures will also receive lifetime achievement awards. The two being honored are Art Spiegelman, author of the historically important Maus, and Tracie D. Hall, the first African American woman to take on the executive director role in the American Library Association.
Take a look at the complete list of 2022 National Book Award finalists below:
Fiction
Tess Gunty – The Rabbit Hutch
Jamil Jan Kochai – The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
Gayl Jones – The Birdcatcher
Sarah Thankam Mathews – All This Could Be Different
Alejandro Varela – The Town of Babylon
Nonfiction
Meghan O’Rourke – The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Imani Perry – South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
David Quammen – Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
Ingrid Rojas Contreras – The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir
Robert Samuels, Toluse Olorunnipa – His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
Poetry
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke – Look at This Blue
John Keene – Punks: New & Selected Poems
Sharon Olds – Balladz
Roger Reeves – Best Barbarian
Jenny Xie – The Rupture Tense
Translated Literature
Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls – A New Name: Septology VI-VII
Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Mark Polizzotti – Kibogo
Mónica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker – Jawbone
Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell – Seven Empty Houses
Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani – Scattered All Over the Earth
Young People’s Literature
Kelly Barnhill – The Ogress and the Orphans
Sonora Reyes – The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, Dawud Anyabwile – Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice
Sabaa Tahir – All My Rage
Lisa Yee – Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
Check out the last year’s National Book Award Winners here on Bookstr!
