National Book Award: Winners, Finalists, and Longlisted Titles

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National Book Award Medals

The mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America. National Book Awards are given in five categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature.

Here we highlight the winners of African descent. The first African-American writer to win a National Book Award was Ralph Ellison, in 1953, for Invisible Man.

One Book Honored by the National Book Foundation in 1962

Finalist – Nonfiction
Nobody Knows My Name

Nobody Knows My Name

by James Baldwin

List Price: $14.00
Vintage Books (Dec 01, 1992)
Fiction, Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN: 9780679744733Publisher: Penguin Random House
Book Description:

Told with Baldwin s characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers.