Here are the 2025 National Book Awards finalists.

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