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 2018

Winner - Nonfiction

Winner - Poetry

Winner - Young People’s Literature

Finalist - Fiction

Finalist - Fiction

Finalist - Poetry

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
by Terrance Hayes

List Price: $18.00
Penguin Books (Jun 19, 2018)
Poetry, Paperback, 112 pages
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Finalist - Young People’s Literature

The Journey of Little Charlie
by Christopher Paul Curtis

List Price: $16.99
Scholastic Press (Jan 30, 2018)
Fiction, Hardcover, 256 pages
Target Age Group: Middle Grade
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Longlist - Fiction

Longlist - Poetry

Monument: Poems New and Selected
by Natasha Trethewey

    List Price: $26.00
    Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Nov 06, 2018)
    Poetry, Hardcover, 208 pages
    More Info