Each year, the National Book Critics Circle presents awards for the finest books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism.
The National Book Critics Circle Award
1999 Winners & Finalists
Fiction Winner
- Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn (Doubleday)
Fiction Finalists
- A. Manette Ansay, Midnight Champagne (Morrow)
- Frederick Busch, The Night Inspector (Harmony: Crown)
- J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (Viking)
- David Gates, The Wonders of the Invisible World: Stories (Knopf)
General Nonfiction Winner
- Jonathan Weiner, Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior (Knopf)
General Nonfiction Finalists
- Jane Brox, Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History (Beacon)
- John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (Norton)
- Patricia Hampl, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory (Norton)
- Jean-Paul Kauffmann, The Black Room at Longwood: Napoleon’s Exile on Saint Helena (Four Walls Eight Windows)
Biography/Autobiography Winner
- Henry Wiencek, The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White (St. Martin’s)
Biography/Autobiography Finalists
- Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Vol. II: Darker Reflections (Pantheon)
- Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (Random)
- Judith Thurman, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette (Knopf)
- Susan E. Tifft & Alex S. Jones, The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times (Little, Brown)
Poetry Winner
- Ruth Stone, Ordinary Words (Paris Press)
Poetry Finalists
- Rafael Campo, Diva (Duke Univ. Press)
- Tory Dent, HIV, Mon Amour (Sheep Meadow)
- Rita Dove, On the Bus With Rosa Parks (Norton)
- Susan Kingsolving, Dailies & Rushes (Grove)
Criticism Winner
- Jorge Louis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions (Viking)
Criticism Finalists
- Stuart Klawans, Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order (Cassell)
- William Logan, Reputations of the Tongue: On Poets and Poetry (Univ. Pr. of Florida)
- Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets (Knopf)
- David Shields, Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season (Crown)
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Winner
- Benjamin Schwarz
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
- Pauline Kael
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti