Here are the winners of the National Book Awards, including Rabih Alameddine and Omar El Akkad.

The winners of this year’s National Book Awards have just been announced at a ritzy gala in downtown Manhattan. Rabih Alameddine’s The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) won the fiction award, Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This won for non-fiction, Patricia Smith’s The Intentions of Thunder won the poetry award, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s We Are Green and Trembling, translated by Robin Myers, won the prize for translated literature, and Daniel Nayeri’s The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story won the young people’s literature award.

Oliver Scialdone and I journeyed all the way from Brooklyn to Wall Street, to bring you some on the spot updates from the Awards ceremony. We’re reporting from the top row of the Press Corner of the National Book Awards, 100 feet from the stage and ten feet from the coat room. It’s a space of immense blogging power.

The night kicked off with some music from Corinne Bailey Rae and an opening monologue from comedian Jeff Hiller, who welcomed “the glitterati of the literati” with some good bits. He riffed on a typo that rendered his book title as “Actress of a Cetain Age”and got big laughs with the literary drag queen names “Virginia Poof,” “Margaret Got-wood,” “Stephen Queen,” and “Elena Ferrant-ayyy”—Oliver noted that “Ferrant-slay” might have scanned better.

Roxanne Gay won the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community and spoke about her career of writing, of supporting other writers, and of “refusing to work from a scarcity mindset.” She ended by addressing the industry directly and sharply at times about their responsibilities to avoid hollowness like “nonsense metrics like social media.” She ended by reminding the crowd that “you will be remembered for how you use this power or how you don’t.”

Next, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was presented to George Saunders, who was expectedly funny and charming in his acceptance speech, describing “writing as a kind of sacrament” and sharing a few lessons he’s learned from a life devoted to craft.

With desserts making their way to tables and drinks being refilled, the Awards began. Daniel Nayeri won the Young People’s Literature award for his book, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story and gave a beautiful acceptance speech about how lucky he felt to have spent a life in letters.

Next, Cabezón Cámara and translator Robin Myers won the award for translated literature for their book We Are Green and Trembling. Cámara accepted the award in her own language, opening by saying, “I’m going to speak in Spanish because there are fascists who don’t like that.” Translator Robin Myers spoke movingly about the power of literature in the face of authoritarian government and genocide.

The poetry award went to Patricia Smith for her book The Intentions of Thunder. After some thank yous, Patricia told a tender, lyrical story about her mother at the end of her life, and about finding her own community and her own pride. It’s a speech I can’t hope to summarize—you should absolutely seek it out on the National Book Foundation’s YouTube.

Next was the non-fiction award, which went to Omar El Akkad for his One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. His speech was as bracing and clear as his writing. He also delivered on of the best jokes of the night, a perfectly delivered and dry line about how he only has one suit, and that each time he puts it on it finds new ways of not fitting him. A well deserved win.

And the fiction award went to Rabih Alameddine for his novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), and gave a very funny speech full of very specific thank yous. He also spoke about the world around his work, thanked the writers who have supported him, and thanked the writers who stand up and say enough.

If you haven’t read these books yet, you have lots of choices for holiday reading. We’ll have more from the winning authors later this week on Lit Hub, but if you want to hear more from the authors, translators, and poets, you can check out our series of short interviews with the finalists.

For now, Oliver and I are off to find our colleagues and the dance floor—I’ll be on the sidelines, not dancing, if you need me.