Today, the National Book Foundation announced the finalists in all five categories—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature—for the 2025 National Book Awards.
The winners will be announced at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York City; winners will each receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and a statue; all finalists will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.
Until then, here are the finalists:
FICTION:
Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
Grove Press / Grove Atlantic
Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief
Knopf / Penguin Random House
Karen Russell, The Antidote
Knopf / Penguin Random House
Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther
A Strange Object / Deep Vellum Publishing
Bryan Washington, Palaver
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers
*
NONFICTION:
Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Knopf / Penguin Random House
Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
Ecco / HarperCollins Publishers
Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers
Claudia Rowe, Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care
Abrams Press / Abrams
Jordan Thomas, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
*
POETRY:
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, The New Economy
Copper Canyon Press
Cathy Linh Che, Becoming Ghost
Washington Square Press / Simon & Schuster
Tiana Clark, Scorched Earth
Washington Square Press / Simon & Schuster
Richard Siken, I Do Know Some Things
Copper Canyon Press
Patricia Smith, The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
*
TRANSLATED LITERATURE:
Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)
Translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
New Directions Publishing
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, We Are Green and Trembling
Translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers
New Directions Publishing
Anjet Daanje, The Remembered Soldier
Translated from the Dutch by David McKay
New Vessel Press
Hamid Ismailov, We Computers: A Ghazal Novel
Translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega
Yale University Press
Neige Sinno, Sad Tiger
Translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer
Seven Stories Press
*
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE:
Kyle Lukoff, A World Worth Saving
Dial Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House
Amber McBride, The Leaving Room
Feiwel & Friends / Macmillan Publishers
Daniel Nayeri, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story
Levine Querido
Hannah V. Sawyerr, Truth Is
Amulet Books / Abrams
Ibi Zoboi, (S)Kin
Versify / HarperCollins Publishers
