The 2017 National Book Award Winners Announced
In Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry and Young People's Literature
Last night, the National Book Foundation announced its winners of National Book Awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature in New York City at a ceremony hosted by Cynthia Nixon. Each winner will be awarded $10,000, and each finalist will take home $1,000. In addition to these awards, the National Book Foundation their medal for distinguished contribution to American letters to Annie Proulx and the Literarian Award for outstanding service to the American literary community to Scholastic President and CEO Richard Robinson.
Congratulations to the winners:
Photo: Beowulf Sheehan
Fiction: Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
Further reading: Jesmyn Ward on race in America; Lit Hub’s most recent interview with Ward; Ward’s conversations with Paul Holdengraber and Michele Filgate
Fiction finalists:
Elliot Ackerman, Dark at the Crossing
Lisa Ko, The Leavers
Min Jin Lee, Pachinko
Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Photo: Tanya Sazanksy
Nonfiction: Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Further reading: Masha Gessen on why we must protest; Lit Hub’s recent interview with Gessen
Nonfiction finalists:
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Photo: James Franco
Poetry: Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016
Further reading: Frank Bidart’s poem “Old and Young“
Poetry finalists:
Leslie Harrison, The Book of Endings
Layli Long Soldier, WHEREAS
Shane McCrae, In the Language of My Captor
Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems
Photo: Lovato Images
Young People’s Literature: Robin Benway, Far from the Tree
Further reading: Lit Hub’s recent interview with Benway
Young People’s Literature finalists:
Elana K. Arnold, What Girls Are Made Of
Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Rita Williams-Garcia, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground
Ibi Zoboi, American Street
Emily Temple
Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.
