2025 National Book Awards

Last updated

The 76th National Book Awards (NBA), presented at a ceremony and benefit dinner by the National Book Foundation, took place on November 19, 2025, in New York City. The ceremony included a musical performance by Corinne Bailey Rae, with Jeff Hiller giving the welcoming and closing remarks. [1]

Contents

Winner and nominees

CategoryWinner [2] Shortlist [3] Longlist [4]
Fiction Rabih Alameddine, The True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
Nonfiction Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
  • Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
  • Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow
  • Claudia Rowe, Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care
  • Jordan Thomas, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
  • Caleb Gayle, Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State
  • Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy, For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran's Women-Led Uprising
  • Lana Lin, The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam
  • Ben Ratliff, Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening
  • Helen Whybrow, The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life
Poetry Patricia Smith, The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems
  • Gbenga Adesina, Death Does Not End at the Sea
  • Rickey Laurentiis, Death of the First Idea
  • Esther Lin, Cold Thief Place
  • Natalie Shapero, Stay Dead
  • Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, Terror Counter
Translated Literature Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, We Are Green and Trembling (translated by Robin Myers)
Young People's Literature Daniel Nayeri, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story
  • María Dolores Águila, A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez
  • K. Ancrum, The Corruption of Hollis Brown
  • Derrick Barnes, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze
  • Mahogany L. Browne, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe
  • Maria van Lieshout, Song of a Blackbird

Judges

Fiction

Nonfiction

Poetry

Translated Literature

Young People's Literature

References

  1. "76th National Book Awards". National Book Award . Retrieved November 20, 2025.
  2. Limbong, Andrew (November 20, 2025). "Here are the winners of the 2025 National Book Awards". NPR . Retrieved November 20, 2025.
  3. "2025 National Book Awards Finalists Announced". National Book Foundation . October 15, 2025. Retrieved November 20, 2025.
  4. 1 2 "The 2025 National Book Awards Longlist". The New Yorker . September 12, 2025. Retrieved November 20, 2025.