National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography

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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.

Contents

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]

Recipients

National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography winners and finalists
YearAuthorTitleResultRef.
1983 Joyce Johnson Minor Characters Winner
1984 Joseph Frank Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859Winner
1985 Leon Edel Henry James: A LifeWinner
1986 Arnold Rampersad The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941Winner
1987 Donald R. Howard Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His WorldWinner
1988 Richard Ellmann Oscar WildeWinner
1989 Geoffrey C. Ward A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin RooseveltWinner
1990 Robert A. Caro Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. IIWinner
1991 Philip Roth Patrimony: A True Story Winner
1992 Carol Brightman Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her WorldWinner
1993 Edmund White GenetWinner
1994 Mikal Gilmore Shot in the Heart Winner
1995 Robert Polito Savage Art: A Biography of Jim ThompsonWinner
1996 Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes Winner
1997 James Tobin Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War IIWinner
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.JohnsonWinner
2002 Janet Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. IIWinner
2003 William Taubman Khrushchev: The Man and His Era Winner
2004 Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan De Kooning: An American Master Winner
2005

Francine du Plessix Gray

Them: A Memoir of Parents

Winner
2006

Daniel Mendelsohn

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

Winner

2007

Edwidge Danticat

Brother, I'm Dying

Winner

[4] [5] [6]

Joshua Clark

Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone

Finalist

[5]

Anna Politkovskaya

Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia

Joyce Carol Oates

The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982

Sara Paretsky

Writing in an Age of Silence

2008

Ariel Sabar

My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

Winner

[7]

Honor Moore

The Bishop's Daughter

Finalist

[8] [7]

Andrew X. Pham

The Eaves of Heaven

Helene Cooper

The House on Sugar Beach

Rick Bass

Why I Came West

2009

Diana Athill

Somewhere Towards the End

Winner

[9] [10] [11]

Edmund White

City Boy

Finalist

[9]

Kati Marton

Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America

Mary Karr

Lit

Debra Gwartney

Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love

2010

Darin Strauss

Half a Life

Winner

[12] [13]

Kai Bird

Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978

Finalist

[12]

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

Hiroshima in the Morning

Christopher Hitchens

Hitch-22: A Memoir

Patti Smith

Just Kids

David Dow

The Autobiography of an Execution

2011

Mira Bartók

The Memory Palace

Winner

[14] [15]

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America

Finalist

[14] [16] [15]

Luis J. Rodriguez

It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing

Diane Ackerman

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing

Deb Olin Unferth

Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War

2012

Leanne Shapton

Swimming Studies

Winner

[17] [18]

Anthony Shadid

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East

Finalist

[19] [20] [17]

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

In the House of the Interpreter

Maureen N. McLane

My Poets

Reyna Grande

The Distance Between Us

2013

Amy Wilentz

Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti

Winner

[21] [22]

Jesmyn Ward

Men We Reaped

Finalist

[21] [23]

Aleksandar Hemon

The Book of My Lives

Rebecca Solnit

The Faraway Nearby

Sonali Deraniyagala

Wave

2014

Roz Chast

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

Winner

[24] [25]

Gary Shteyngart

Little Failure

Finalist

[26] [24]

Lacy M. Johnson

The Other Side

Blake Bailey

The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait

Meline Toumani

There Was and There Was Not

2015

Margo Jefferson

Negroland: A Memoir

Winner

[27]

George Hodgman

Bettyville

Finalist

Helen Macdonald

H is for Hawk

Elizabeth Alexander

The Light of the World

Vivian Gornick

The Odd Woman and the City

2016

Hope Jahren

Lab Girl

Winner

[28]

Jenny Diski

In Gratitude

Finalist

Marion Coutts

The Iceberg

Hisham Matar

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

Kao Kalia Yang

The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

2017

Xiaolu Guo

Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China

Winner

[29] [30] [31]

Henry Marsh

Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon

Finalist

[32] [29]

Roxane Gay

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Thi Bui

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia

2018

Nora Krug

Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home

Winner

[33] [34] [35] [36]

Nicole Chung

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir

Finalist

[33]

Tara Westover

Educated: A Memoir

Nell Painter

Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over

Richard Beard

The Day That Went Missing: A Family's Story

Rigoberto Gonzalez

What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood

2019

Chanel Miller

Know My Name: A Memoir

Winner

[37] [38]

Ronan Farrow

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators

Finalist

[37]

Laura Cumming

Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child

Mira Jacob

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir

2020

Cathy Park Hong

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

Winner

[39] [40] [41]

Riva Lehrer

Golem Girl

Finalist

[40]

Alia Volz

Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco

Wayétu Moore

The Dragons, The Giant, The Women

Shayla Lawson

This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope

2021

Jeremy Atherton Lin

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

Winner

[42]

Rodrigo Garcia

A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha

Finalist

[43] [44] [45]

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

A Ghost in the Throat

Hanif Abdurraqib

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

Albert Samaha

Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes

See also

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References

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