2023 National Book Award Winners

18 Nov 2023 National Book Award Winners

Written by: Nick Philip, Adult Services Supervisor

The winners of the 2023 National Book Awards have been announced! The National Book Awards are awarded each year by the National Book Foundation to one book from the five categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. Winners receive a $10,000 prize and finalists receive $1,000. Each category’s winner and finalists are below, along with corresponding links to the titles in our catalog.

Fiction

Winner: Blackouts by Justin Torres

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvӓinen

Nonfiction

Winner: The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk

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

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

Poetry

Winner: from unincorporated territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Perez

How to Communicate by John Lee Clark

suddenly we by Evie Shockley

Tripas by Brandon Som

From From by Monica Youn

Translated Literature

Winner: The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel; translated from Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung; translated from Korean by Anton Hur

Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop; translated from French by Sam Taylor

Abyss by Pilar Quintana; translated from Spanish by Lisa Dillman

On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer; translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott

Young People’s Literature

Winner: A First Time for Everything, Dan Santat

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow

Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy

Big by Vashti Harrison

The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh

If you’re interested in exploring some past winners, here’s a list of past prize winners in the fiction category, with links to the catalog attached.