National Book Award: Winners, Finalists and Longlisted Titles
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: 2024 – 2023 – 2017 – 2016 – 2015 – 2014 – 2013
9 Books Honored by the National Book Foundation in 2015
Winner - Nonfiction
Between The World And Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- NYT Best Book of the 21st Century
- A Top 10 Book in the “Nonfiction Books from the 21st Century” Category
- 10 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 2 Book Clubs’s Reading Lists
- 1 Time Power List Bestselling Book
- Kirkus Prize Finalist/Winner 2015
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
- A New York Times Notable Book for 2015
Spiegel & Grau (Jul 01, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 176 pages
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Read Our Review of Between The World And Me
Winner - Poetry
Voyage of the Sable Venus: and Other Poems
by Robin Coste Lewis
List Price: $26.00Knopf (Sep 29, 2015)
Poetry, Hardcover, 160 pages
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Finalist - Fiction
The Turner House
by Angela Flournoy
- 1 Time Power List Bestselling Book
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
- 2016 BCALA Literary Award
- A New York Times Notable Book for 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Apr 14, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 352 pages
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Finalist - Nonfiction
Ordinary Light: A Memoir
by Tracy K. Smith
List Price: $25.95Knopf (Mar 31, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 368 pages
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Finalist - Poetry
How to Be Drawn
by Terrance Hayes
List Price: $20.00William Morrow (Mar 31, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 112 pages
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Finalist - Poetry
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ross Gay
- A 2025 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Poetry
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Hurston/Wright Honored Book (2016)
- An NAACP Image Award Honored Book
University of Pittsburgh Press (Jan 07, 2015)
Poetry, Paperback, 112 pages
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Longlist - Fiction
Welcome to Braggsville: A Novel
by T. Geronimo Johnson
List Price: $25.99Penguin Books (Feb 17, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 384 pages
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Longlist - Poetry
Heaven: Poems
by Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Jun 16, 2015)
Poetry, Hardcover, 80 pages
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Longlist - Young People’s Literature
X: A Novel
by Ilyasah Shabazz, Illustrated by Kekla Magoon
List Price: $16.99Candlewick Press (Jan 06, 2015)
Fiction, Hardcover, 384 pages
Target Age Group: Young Adult
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