The National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography, established in 2005, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English." [1] Awards are presented annually to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Between 1983 and 2004, the award was presented jointly with biography.
Books previously published in English are not eligible, such as re-issues and paperback editions. They do consider "translations, short story and essay collections, self published books, and any titles that fall under the general categories." [2]
The judges are the volunteer directors of the NBCC who are 24 members serving rotating three-year terms, with eight elected annually by the voting members, namely "professional book review editors and book reviewers." [3] Winners of the awards are announced each year at the NBCC awards ceremony in conjunction with the yearly membership meeting, which takes place in March. [2]
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1983 | Joyce Johnson | Minor Characters | Winner | |
1984 | Joseph Frank | Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859 | Winner | |
1985 | Leon Edel | Henry James: A Life | Winner | |
1986 | Arnold Rampersad | The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941 | Winner | |
1987 | Donald R. Howard | Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World | Winner | |
1988 | Richard Ellmann | Oscar Wilde | Winner | |
1989 | Geoffrey C. Ward | A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt | Winner | |
1990 | Robert A. Caro | Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II | Winner | |
1991 | Philip Roth | Patrimony: A True Story | Winner | |
1992 | Carol Brightman | Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World | Winner | |
1993 | Edmund White | Genet | Winner | |
1994 | Mikal Gilmore | Shot in the Heart | Winner | |
1995 | Robert Polito | Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson | Winner | |
1996 | Frank McCourt | Angela's Ashes | Winner | |
1997 | James Tobin | Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II | Winner | |
1998 | Sylvia Nasar | A Beautiful Mind | Winner | |
1999 | Henry Wiencek | The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White | Winner | |
2000 | Herbert P. Bix | Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan | Winner | |
2001 | Adam Sisman | Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr.Johnson | Winner | |
2002 | Janet Browne | Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II | Winner | |
2003 | William Taubman | Khrushchev: The Man and His Era | Winner | |
2004 | Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan | De Kooning: An American Master | Winner | |
2005 | Them: A Memoir of Parents | Winner | ||
2006 | Winner | |||
2007 | Winner | [4] [5] [6] | ||
Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone | Finalist | [5] | ||
Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia | ||||
The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 | ||||
Writing in an Age of Silence | ||||
2008 | My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq | Winner | [7] | |
The Bishop's Daughter | Finalist | [8] [7] | ||
The Eaves of Heaven | ||||
The House on Sugar Beach | ||||
Why I Came West | ||||
2009 | Somewhere Towards the End | Winner | [9] [10] [11] | |
City Boy | Finalist | [9] | ||
Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America | ||||
Lit | ||||
Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love | ||||
2010 | Winner | [12] [13] | ||
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 | Finalist | [12] | ||
Hiroshima in the Morning | ||||
The Autobiography of an Execution | ||||
2011 | The Memory Palace | Winner | [14] [15] | |
Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America | Finalist | [14] [16] [15] | ||
It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing | ||||
One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing | ||||
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War | ||||
2012 | Swimming Studies | Winner | [17] [18] | |
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East | Finalist | [19] [20] [17] | ||
In the House of the Interpreter | ||||
My Poets | ||||
The Distance Between Us | ||||
2013 | Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti | Winner | [21] [22] | |
Finalist | [21] [23] | |||
Wave | ||||
2014 | Winner | [24] [25] | ||
Finalist | [26] [24] | |||
The Other Side | ||||
The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait | ||||
There Was and There Was Not | ||||
2015 | Winner | [27] | ||
Bettyville | Finalist | |||
The Light of the World | ||||
The Odd Woman and the City | ||||
2016 | Winner | [28] | ||
In Gratitude | Finalist | |||
The Iceberg | ||||
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father | ||||
2017 | Winner | [29] [30] [31] | ||
Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon | Finalist | [32] [29] | ||
The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia | ||||
2018 | Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home | Winner | [33] [34] [35] [36] | |
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir | Finalist | [33] | ||
Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over | ||||
What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood | ||||
2019 | Winner | [37] [38] | ||
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators | Finalist | [37] | ||
Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child | ||||
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations | ||||
Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir | ||||
2020 | Winner | [39] [40] [41] | ||
Golem Girl | Finalist | [40] | ||
Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco | ||||
The Dragons, The Giant, The Women | ||||
This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope | ||||
2021 | Winner | [42] | ||
A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha | Finalist | [43] [44] [45] | ||
A Ghost in the Throat | ||||
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance | ||||
Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes | ||||
2022 | Winner | [46] | ||
Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes | Finalist | |||
A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast | ||||
Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan | ||||
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir | ||||
2023 | How to Say Babylon: A Memoir | Winner | [47] | |
I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir | Finalist | |||
Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm | ||||
Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison | ||||
Story of a Poem: A Memoir | ||||
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, a set of literary awards presented every March.
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". The first NBCC awards were announced and presented January 16, 1976.
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The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, established in 1976, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English."
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