National Book Award: Winners, Finalists, and Longlisted Titles

← Back to Main Awards Page
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.

Check Out AALBC’s Coverage:
2024 2023 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013

One Book Honored by the National Book Foundation in 1964

Finalist – Nonfiction
The Fire Next Time

The Fire Next Time

by James Baldwin

Buy from AALBC

Add to Cart — $14.00

Other Online Retailers

Amazon Barnes & Noble Bookshop
More Book Details
Book Description:

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two letters, written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as

sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle all presented in searing, brilliant prose,

The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.