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


9 Books Honored by the National Book Foundation in 2015

Winner - Nonfiction

Winner - Poetry

Finalist - Fiction

Finalist - Nonfiction

Ordinary Light: A Memoir
by Tracy K. Smith

List Price: $25.95
Knopf (Mar 31, 2015)
Nonfiction, Hardcover, 368 pages
More Info

Finalist - Poetry

Finalist - Poetry

Longlist - Fiction

Longlist - Poetry

Heaven: Poems
by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

    List Price: $24.00
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Jun 16, 2015)
    Poetry, Hardcover, 80 pages
    More Info

    Longlist - Young People’s Literature