The 2023 National Book Awards Longlists Have Been Announced

Fiction

Authors at various stages of their careers are represented on the list of nominees, which includes a debut novel and a debut short story collection. Here are the books that stood out among the 496 submissions:

Silas House, Mat Johnson, Helena María Viramontes, Steph Cha, and Calvin Crosby sit in the judging panel for this year’s Fiction prize.

Nonfiction

Both new and known authors are longlisted for the nonfiction category, and it includes memoir, science writing, biographies, and investigative works among other themes. These are the longlisted books:

This year’s judges include James Fugate, Ada Ferrer, Sonia Shah, Sarah Schulman, and Hanif Abdurraqib.

Poetry

The poets on the longlist are at various stages of their careers, including several National Endowment for the Arts Fellows. These are the standouts:

The judging panel for this year’s poetry prize includes Raina J. León, Solmaz Sharif, Heid E. Erdrich, Rick Barot, and Jonathan Farmer.

• The Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cárdenas, translated from the Spanish by Lizzie Davis
• Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur
• Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated from the French by Sam Taylor
• Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
• The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
• No One Prayed Over Their Graves by Khaled Khalifa, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price
• This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes
• Abyss by Pilar Quintana, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
• On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
• The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud

The judges are Jeremy Tiang, Cristina Rodriguez, Geoffrey Brock, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Arthur Malcolm Dixon.

Sabaa Tahir, Claudette S. McLinn, Justin A. Reynolds, Kyle Lukoff, and Sarah Park Dahlen are among the judges for this year’s Young People’s Literature award.