National Book Award: Winners, Finalists, and Longlisted Titles

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim s point of view. - From the "cult literary icon" (Oprah Daily), Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin ), Jim s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "cult literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

Includes the Story "Breastmilk," Shortlisted for the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing

A Time Must-Read Book of 2024

A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties.

In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before.

In Manifest, a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter s face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In Breastmilk, a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mother s feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In Things Boys Do, a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in 24, Alhaji Williams Street, a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease that s killing the boys on his street.

These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent.

Full of wit, music, and a rollicking cast of characters, The Villain s Dance shows Fiston Mwanza Mujila is back with a bang.

Zaire. Late 90 s. Mobutu s thirty-year reign is tottering. In Lubumbashi, the stubbornly homeless Sanza has fallen in with a trio of veteran street kids led by the devious Ngungi. A chance encounter with the mysterious Monsieur Guillaume seems to offer a way out Meanwhile in Angola, Molakisi has joined thousands of fellow Zairians hoping to make their fortunes hunting diamonds, while Austrian Franz finds himself roped into writing the memoirs of the charismatic Tshiamuena, the Madonna of the Cafunfo Mines. Things are drawing to a head, but at the Mambo de la Fête, they still dance the Villain s Dance from dusk till dawn.

Translated by Roland Glasser.

Written as a collection of vignettes and poetry, The Unboxing of a Black Girl is a creative nonfiction reflection on Black girlhood. The debut YA title, by award-winning author Angela Shanté, is a love letter to Black girls set in New York City and serves as a personal and political critique of how the world raises Black girls.

As Shanté navigates the city through memory, she balances poetry with vignettes that explore the innocence and joy of childhood eroded by adultification. Through this book, she illuminates the places where Black girls are nurtured or exploited in stories and poems about personal and political boxes, love, loss, and sexual assault. Many entries are also studded with cultural footnotes designed to further understanding.

A poignant, personal reflection on basketball, life, and home from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America

Mesmerizing not only the most original sports book I ve ever read but one of the most moving books I ve ever read, period. Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father s jump shot, Abdurraqib writes. The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.

There s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus whether it s basketball, or music, or performance Hanif Abdurraqib s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips s fourth collection is a book as lustrous as the metal of its title.

This beautiful, slender collection small and weighted like a coin is Rowan Ricardo Phillips at his very best. These luminous, unsparing, dreamlike poems are as lyrical as they are virtuosic. Not the meaning, Phillips writes, but the meaningfulness of this mystery we call life powers these poems as they conjure their prismatic array of characters, textures, and moods. As it reverberates through several styles (blank verse, elegy, terza rima, rhyme royal, translation, rap), Silver reimagines them with such extraordinary vision and alluring strangeness that they sound irrepressibly fresh and vibrant. From beginning to end, Silver is a collection that reflects Phillips s guiding principle part physics, part faith, part void that all is reflected in poetry and poetry is reflected in all.

This is work that brings into acute focus the singular and glorious power of poetry in our complex world.

An unapologetically bold, stimulating, and inspired collection of photographs and profiles celebrating the style of African Americans age 50+

Long inspired by mature adults daring to express their creativity and individuality through their style choices, New York Times bestselling novelist Connie Briscoe shines a light on these often overlooked and underappreciated sharply attired individuals. Accompanied by the marvelously talented Milton Washington s dazzling photographs, Briscoe s vision comes alive in these pages. From intrepid to chic, and sophisticated to free-spirited Stepping Out captures the very essences of a vibrant cross section of Black elders, showcasing their stories, their styles, and how their love of fashion was born and bred. This book contextualizes the cultural, spiritual, and historical influences on decades of Black style and testifies to this dynamic legacy for generations to come.

A powerful meditation on Blackness, beauty, faith, and the force of law, from the beloved award-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic

Elegant, profound, and intoxicating Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo s first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department ( flames rose like orchids / blocks lay open like egg cartons ); and more.

At times cerebral and at other times warm, inviting and deeply personal, Spectral Evidence compels us to consider how we think about devotion, beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of Black bodies; about justice and about how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: If I could be / the forensic dreamer / / my art would be a mortician s / paints.

A tender-souled boy reeling from the death of his best friend struggles to fit into a world that wants him to grow up tough and unfeeling in this stunning middle-grade novel in verse from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Genesis Begins Again.

It s the summer before high school and Isaiah feels lost. He thought this summer was going to be just him and his homies Drew and Darius, hangin out, doing wheelies, and watching martial arts movies a lot of chillin before high school and the future. But more and more, Drew will barely talk to him barely even look at him and though he won t admit it, Isaiah knows it s because of Darius, because Darius is gone.

And Isaiah wasn t even there when it happened, with his best friend in his final moments. But he s going to be there now. Him and Drew both, they re gonna spend the summer breaking every single record they can think of, for Darius, for his dream of breaking world records. But Drew s not the same Drew, and Isaiah being Isaiah isn t enough for Drew anymore. Not his taste in music, his love for D&D, his interest in taking photos, or his aversion to jumping off rooftops. The real Isaiah is sensitive; he s uncool.

And one day something unspeakable happens to Isaiah that makes him think Drew s right. If only he could be less sensitive, more tough, less weird, more cool, more contained, less him, things would be easier. But how much can Isaiah keep inside until he shatters wide open?