The National Book Foundation on Tuesday named the 25 finalists for the 2026 National Book Awards.
Winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York City on 18 November.
There are five finalists in each of five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature.
According to the foundation,
publishers submitted 1,912 books this year
. That was 451 in fiction, 727 in nonfiction, 285 in poetry, 159 in translated literature and 290 in young people’s literature. The finalists were chosen by judges’ panels from longlists released in September.
Fiction
NPR noted that
three-time National Book Award finalist Edwidge Danticat and debut novelist Morgan Thomas are up for the fiction prize.
The full list, as given by NPR, is:
- Hannah Lillith Assadi, Paradiso 17
- Edwidge Danticat, Dèy
- Julián Delgado Lopera, Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You
- Valeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End
- Morgan Thomas, Mad Eden
Nonfiction
The nonfiction shortlist is built around prisons, exile and family. Colin Asher’s The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music sits beside Abdelrahman ElGendy’s memoir Huna, which the title describes as being about revolution, prison and becoming. The list also includes Camonghne Felix’s Let the Poets Govern, Sara Nović’s Mother Tongue and Joseph Osmundson’s Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood.
NPR summarised the group this way:
the books cover the prison system, music, and queer parenthood.
Poetry and translation
The poetry finalists are Victoria Chang for Tree of Knowledge, Carolina Ebeid for Hide, Brenda Hillman for Still House in the Desert, Fady Joudah for Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza and Susan Stewart for Bramble.
The foundation describes Joudah, a Palestinian American physician, as
contemplating his split role
as a witness to the destruction in Gaza and as a doctor living in the United States. Another Gaza-focused book appears in translated literature. Samar Yazbek’s Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza was translated from the Arabic by Leri Price.
The other translated finalists are:
- Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night, translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken
- Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa, translated from the Spanish by Rahul Bery
- Intan Paramaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells, translated from the Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
- Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men, translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud
In this category, the prize money is split evenly between author and translator. That applies to winners and finalists alike.
Young people’s literature
Elana K. Arnold is a finalist for Holloway. Tae Keller is nominated for When Tomorrow Burns, and Keala Kendall for That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic. Two more titles complete the category and are listed on the foundation’s site. On 17 November, the young people’s finalists will take part in an event called Teens Read the 2026 National Book Awards. The actor and author Maulik Pancholy will host it.
What is at stake
Each winner receives
$10,000, a bronze medal and a statue
. Each finalist gets $1,000 and a bronze medal. Publishers Weekly noted that the list includes
Danticat, Joudah, Knausgaard and Luiselli
among its better-known names.
The mix of established and newer writers is notable. Thomas is a debut novelist. Several finalists have been honoured by the foundation before, including Chang, who was a 2020 poetry longlister for Obit, and Assadi, who was named a 5 Under 35 honoree in 2018 for Sonora.
The announcement was made with the New York Times. The longlists had appeared in September with The New Yorker. The awards will be presented at the 77th annual ceremony, according to Publishers Weekly.
The foundation’s full announcement lists all 25 finalists with publishers and biographical notes. It is the best place to check the two young people’s titles not named here.