Here are the 2026 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 2026 National Book Awards.

The winners will be announced at the 77th 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:

Hannah Lillith Assadi, Paradiso 17
Knopf / Penguin Random House

Edwidge Danticat, Dèy
Knopf / Penguin Random House

Julián Delgado Lopera, Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You
Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company

Valeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End
Knopf / Penguin Random House

Morgan Thomas, Mad Eden
MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

*
NONFICTION:

Colin Asher, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music
W. W. Norton & Company

Abdelrahman ElGendy, Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming
Hogarth / Penguin Random House

Camonghne Felix, Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom
One World / Penguin Random House

Sara Nović, Mother Tongue
Random House / Penguin Random House

Joseph Osmundson, Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood
Bloomsbury Publishing

*
POETRY:

Victoria Chang, Tree of Knowledge
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

Carolina Ebeid, Hide
Graywolf Press

Brenda Hillman, Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation
Wesleyan University Press

Fady Joudah, Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza
Milkweed Editions

Susan Stewart, Bramble
University of Chicago Press

*
TRANSLATED LITERATURE:

Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night
Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Penguin Press / Penguin Random House

Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa
Translated from the Spanish by Rahul Bery
Bellevue Literary Press

Intan Paramaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells
Translated from the Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
Europa Editions

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men
Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud
Other Press

Samar Yazbek, Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza
Translated from the Arabic by Leri Price
Other Press

*
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE:

Elana K. Arnold, Holloway
Clarion Books / HarperCollins Publishers

Tae Keller, When Tomorrow Burns
Random House Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House

Keala Kendall, That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic
Random House Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House

David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels, The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America
Knopf Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House

Julian Randall, Shook
Henry Holt and Company (BYR) / Macmillan Publishers