2023 National Book Awards Longlist

Every book nominated for the prestigious literary prize this year

Presented by the National Book Foundation, the National Book Awards celebrate the best writing in America. Every year, a winner is chosen in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature. The National Book Awards were first established in 1950 and ever since have seen to it that the best writing in American be celebrated.

Every year a panel of 25 judges is selected, with judges specializing in different categories, to read all submitted books in their category. The judges then narrow those choices down to the longlist, five finalists, and then the ultimate winner of their category. Finalists receive $1,000 and a medal, the five winners receive a prize of $10,000 and a bronze sculpture. When an author has been honored by the awards, they become a lifelong member of the National Book Foundation.

Last year's top prizes went to:

• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
• South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
• Punks: New & Selected Poems by John Keene
• Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

This year's winners will be announced in November. In the meantime, here is a full list of all titles on the National Book Awards 2023 longlist.

Fiction

• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal
• Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan
• This Other Eden by Paul Harding
• Loot by Tania James
• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen
• A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power
• Blackouts by Justin Torres
• Holler, Child by LaToya Watkins

Nonfiction

• The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
• King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
• The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Peiffer
• When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era by Donovan X. Ramsey
• Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
• Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe
• We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir by Raja Shehadeh
• A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant
• I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction by Kidada E. Williams

Literature in Translation

• The Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cárdenas, translated from the Spanish by Lizzie Davis
• Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur
• Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated from the French by Sam Taylor
• Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
• The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
• No One Prayed Over Their Graves by Khaled Khalifa, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price
• This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes
• Abyss by Pilar Quintana, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
• On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
• The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud

Poetry

• How to Communicate by John Lee Clark
• The Diaspora Sonnets by Oliver de la Paz
• Vexations by Annelyse Gelman
• Promises of Gold by José Olivarez
• from unincorporated territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Perez
• West: A Translation by Paisley Rekdal
• Tripas by Brandon Som
• Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan
• suddenly we by Evie Shockley
• From From by Monica Youn

Young People's Literature

• Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow
• Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow
• Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick
• Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy
• Big by Vashti Harrison
• The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh
• Hidden Systems: Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind the Systems We Use Every Day by Dan Nott
• A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat
• Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang
• More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom by Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long

Congratulations to every writer nominated this year for this prestigious honor, and to the teams that helped bring these fifty brilliant new books to the world. This longlist will be narrowed down to five finalists in October. This year's winners will be announced in an awards ceremony November 15. We can't wait!

Read more by Amanda Cleveland