Finalists & Longlists Template

2025 NBCC Award Finalists

• Fiction

  

  

  

  

  

  • Karen Russell

    The Antidote Knopf

  • Katie Kitamura

    Audition Riverhead

  • Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell

    On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) New Directions

  • Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

    We Do Not Part Hogarth

  • Angela Flournoy

    The Wilderness Mariner

• Longlisted Books

  The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (W.W. Norton)
  Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove)
  Long Distance by Ayşegül Savaş (Bloomsbury)
  Sea, Poison by Caren Beilin (New Directions)
  The South by Tash Aw (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  

• Nonfiction

  

  

  

  

  

  • Greg Grandin

    America, América: A New History of the New World Penguin Press

  • Barbara Demick

    Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins Random House

  • Karen Hao

    Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI Penguin Press

  • Scott Anderson

    King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution, a Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation Doubleday

  • Gardiner Harris

    No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson Random House

• Longlisted Books

  The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story by Brandy Schillace (W. W. Norton)
  Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper)
  A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile by Aatish Taseer (Catapult)
  Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness by Michael Koresky (Bloomsbury)
  Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America by Michael Luo (Doubleday)
  

• Biography

  

  

  

  

  

  • Mayukh Sen

    Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star W. W. Norton

  • Alex Green

    A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled Bellevue Literary Press

  • Amanda Vaill

    Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  • Ashley D. Farmer

    Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore Pantheon

  • Carla Kaplan

    Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford Harper

• Longlisted Books

  Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America by Sam Tanenhaus (Random House)
  Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson by Claire Hoffman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux (W. W. Norton)
  William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love by Philip Hoare (Pegasus Books)
  

• Autobiography

  

  

  

  

  

  • Geraldine Brooks

    Memorial Days Viking

  • Arundhati Roy

    Mother Mary Comes to Me Scribner

  • Beth Macy

    Paper Girl Penguin

  • Hanif Kureishi

    Shattered Ecco

  • Miriam Toews

    A Truce That Is Not Peace Bloomsbury

• Longlisted Books

  Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday)
  The Broken King by Michael Thomas (Grove)
  I'll Tell You When I'm Home by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press)
  Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography by Hester Kaplan (Catapult)
  

• Poetry

  

  

  

  

  

  • Yuki Tanaka

    Chronicle of Drifting Copper Canyon

  • Rickey Laurentiis

    Death of the First Idea Knopf

  • Kevin Young

    Night Watch Knopf

  • Henri Cole

    The Other Love Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  • Tolu Oloruntoba

    Unravel McClelland & Stewart

• Longlisted Books

  After You Were, I Am by Camille Ralphs (McSweeney's)
  Into the Hush by Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon)
  Salvage by Hedgie Choi (University of Wisconsin)
  small lives by Gary Jackson (University of New Mexico)
  Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero (Copper Canyon)
  

• Criticism

  

  

  

  

  

  • Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

    Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue New Directions

  • Joanna Pocock

    Greyhound Soft Skull Press

  • Quinn Slobodian

    Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right Zone Books

  • Omar El Akkad

    One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This Knopf

  • Viet Thanh Nguyen

    To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other Harvard University Press

• Longlisted Books

  Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing, 2019-2025 by A.S. Hamrah (n+1)
  Authority: Essays by Andrea Long Chu (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  Dismantling the Master's Clock: On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheedah Phillips (AK Press)
  Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman (Semiotext(e))
  Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat by Hito Steyerl (Verso Books)
  

• John Leonard Prize

  The John Leonard Prize for Best First Book is selected by the organization’s membership. The 2024 winner will be announced on March 20, 2024.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  • Nicholas Boggs

    Baldwin: A Love Story Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  • Evanthia Bromiley

    Crown Grove Press

  • Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton

    Hunchback Hogarth

  • Liz Pelly

    Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist Atria/One Signal Publishers

  • Hedgie Choi

    Salvage University of Wisconsin Press

  • Lucas Schaefer

    The Slip Simon & Schuster

• Gregg Barrios Book in Translation

  

  

  

  

  

  

  • Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

    Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue New Directions

  • Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi

    Heart Lamp And Other Stories

  • Hanna Stoltenberg, translated from the Norwegian by Wendy H. Gabrielsen

    Near Distance Biblioasis

  • Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer

    Sad Tiger Seven Stories

  • Markus Werner, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann

    The Frog in the Throat NYRB

  • Olga Ravn, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken

    The Wax Child New Directions

• Longlisted Books

  Bodies Found in Various Places by Elvira Hernández, translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky and Alec Schumacher (Cardboard House)
  Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece by Nasser Rabah, translated from the Arabic by Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal and Khaled Al-Hilli (City Lights)
  The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from the Chinese by Dong Li (Deep Vellum)
  Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal, translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer (New Vessel Press)
  We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hogarth)
  Wickerwork by Christian Lehnert, translated from the German by Richard Sieburth (Archipelago)
  

• Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

  The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing is an annual award recognizing outstanding work by a member of the NBCC. The citation is awarded in honor of Nona Balakian, a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, and comes with a cash prize of $1,000. The winner of the 2025 Balakian Prize is Rhoda Feng. The finalists are listed below.

  • Edna Bonhomme

  • Priscilla Gilman

  • Julia Klein

  • James Marcus