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    Here’s the longlist for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction.

    Literary Hub

    September 12, 2025, 11:00am

    Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction. Then ten titles were selected from a pool of 434 books submitted for consideration by their publishers. This year’s judges for Fiction are Rumaan Alam (Chair), Debra Magpie Earling, Attica Locke, Elizabeth McCracken, and Cody Morrison.

    The finalists in all categories will be announced on Tuesday, October 7, and the winners revealed at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 19.

    In the meantime, here’s the longlist:

    Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
    Grove Press / Grove Atlantic

    Susan Choi, Flashlight
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

    Angela Flournoy, The Wilderness
    Mariner Books / HarperCollins Publishers

    Jonas Hassen Khemiri, The Sisters
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

    Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief
    Knopf / Penguin Random House

    Kevin Moffett, Only Son
    McSweeney’s

    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

    Joy Williams, The Pelican Child
    Knopf / Penguin Random House

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