2019 National Book Award Finalists Announced

Earlier this morning, the National Book Foundation announced its 2019 finalists. Find them below, listed by category and linked to their Booklist reviews when available. The awards ceremony will be held on the evening of November 19. We will all be tweeting out the winners, so be sure to follow along at www.twitter.com/ALA_Booklist!

Fiction

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James

★ Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips

★ The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami

★ Sabrina and Corina, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

★ Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi

Nonfiction

★ The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer

Solitary, by Albert Woodfox and Leslie George

Thick: And Other Essays, by Tressie McMillan Cottom

★ What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance, by Carolyn Forché

The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom

Translated Literature

The Barefoot Woman, by Scholastique Mukasonga and translated by Jordan Stump

Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, by László Krasznahorkai and translated by Ottilie Mulzet

Crossing, by Pajtim Statovci and translated by David Hackston

★ Death Is Hard Work, by Khaled Khalifa and translated by Leri Price

★ The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder

Poetry

Be Recorder, by Carmen Giménez Smith

Deaf Republic, by Ilya Kaminsky

“I”: New and Selected Poems, by Toi Derricotte

Sight Lines, by Arthur Sze

The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

Young People’s Literature

1919: The Year That Changed America, by Martin W. Sandler

★ Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds

★ Patron Saints of Nothing, by Randy Ribay

Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi

★ Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, by Laura Ruby