National Book Foundation
NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
Martín Espada of Amherst, Massachusetts, won the 2021 National Book Award in poetry for Floaters (Norton). The finalists in poetry were Desiree C. Bailey of Trinidad and Tobago and New York City for What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press), Douglas Kearney of Saint Paul for Sho (Wave Books), Hoa Nguyen of Toronto for A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure (Wave Books), and Jackie Wang of Los Angeles for The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void (Nightboat Books). Jason Mott of Bolton, North Carolina, won the
2021 National Book Award in fiction for Hell of a Book (Dutton). The finalists in fiction were Anthony Doerr of Boise, Idaho, for Cloud Cuckoo Land (Scribner), Lauren Groff of Gainesville, Florida, for Matrix (Riverhead Books), Laird Hunt of Providence for Zorrie (Bloomsbury Publishing), and Robert Jones Jr. of New York City for The Prophets (G.P. Putnam’s Sons). Tiya Miles of Cambridge, Massachusetts, won the 2021 National Book Award in nonfiction for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House). The finalists in nonfiction were Hanif Abdurraqib of Columbus, Ohio, for A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance (Random House), Lucas Bessire of Norman, Oklahoma, for Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains (Princeton University Press), Grace M. Cho of New York City for Tastes Like Water (Feminist Press), and Nicole Eustace of Mamaroneck,
New York, for Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America (Liveright). Malinda Lo of Arlington, Massachusetts, won the 2021 National Book Award in young people’s
literature for Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Dutton Books for Young Readers). The finalists in young people’s literature were Shing Yin Khor of Los Angeles for The Legend of Auntie Po (Kokila), Kyle Lukoff of New York City for Too Bright to See (Dial Books for Young Readers), Kekla Magoon of Montpelier, Vermont, for Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People (Candlewick Press), and Amber McBride of Charlottesville, Virginia, for Me (Moth) (Feiwel and Friends). Elisa Shua Dusapin of Porrentruy, Switzerland, won the
2021 National Book Award in translated literature for Winter in Sokcho (Open Letter), translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins of London. The finalists in translated literature were Ge Fei of Beijing for Peach Blossom Paradise (New York Review Books), translated from the Chinese by Canaan Morse of Cambridge; Nona Fernández of Santiago for The Twilight Zone (Graywolf Press), translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer of New York City; Benjamín Labatut of Santiago for When We Cease to Understand the World (New York Review Books), translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West of
Barcelona; and Samar Yazbek of Paris for Planet of Clay (World Editions), translated from the Arabic by Leri Price of Chester, England. Espada, Mott, Miles, and Lo each won $10,000; Dusapin and Higgins each won $5,000. The finalists each received $1,000. The poetry judges were Don Mee Choi, Natalie Diaz, Matthea Harvey, A. Van Jordan, and Ilya Kaminsky; the fiction judges were Alan Michael Parker, Emily Pullen, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Charles Yu; the nonfiction judges were Eula Biss, Aaron John Curtis, Nell Painter, Kate Tuttle, and Jerald Walker; the young people’s literature judges were Pablo Cartaya, Traci Chee, Leslie Connor, Cathryn Mercier, and Ibi Aanu Zoboi; and the translated literature judges were Jessie Chaffee, Sergio de la Pava, Madhu H. Kaza, Achy Obejas, and Stephen Snyder. The annual awards honor books of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, young people's literature, and translated literature published in the U.S. during the award year. As of this writing, the next deadline has not been set.
5 UNDER 35
Five fiction writers were selected as the National Book Foundation’s 2021 5 Under 35 honorees. They are Caleb Azumah Nelson of London for his novel, Open Water (Black Cat, 2021), selected by Brit Bennett; Nathan Harris of Austin, Texas, for his novel, The Sweetness of Water (Little, Brown, 2021), selected by Charmaine Craig; Lee Lai of Tio’tia:ke for her graphic novel, Stone Fruit (Fantagraphics, 2021), selected by Bryan Washington; Claire Luchette of Madison, Wisconsin, for their novel, Agatha of Little Neon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), selected by Elizabeth McCracken; and Dantiel W. Moniz of Madison, Wisconsin, for her story collection, Milk Blood Heat (Grove, 2021), selected by Rumaan Alam. They each received $1,000. The annual awards are given to writers under the age of 35 who have published their first book of fiction in the previous five years. There is no application process. National Book Foundation, 90 Broad Street, Suite 604, New York, NY 10004. (212) 685-0261.
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