National Book Award: Winners, Finalists and Longlisted Titles

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 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 of the National Book Awards:  2024202320172016201520142013


4 Books Honored by the National Book Foundation in 2009

Winner - Young People’s Literature

Finalist - Poetry

Speak Low: Poems
by Carl Phillips

    List Price: $23.00
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Mar 31, 2009)
    Poetry, Hardcover, 80 pages
    More Info

    Finalist - Poetry

    Open Interval (Pitt Poetry Series)
    by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

      List Price: $14.95
      University of Pittsburgh Press (Apr 28, 2009)
      Poetry, Paperback, 72 pages
      More Info

      Finalist - Young People’s Literature