Finalists Announced for the 2026 National Book Awards

The National Book Foundation has revealed the finalists for the 2026 National Book Awards in five categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature.

Winners will be disclosed during the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York City. Each winner will receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and a statue, while all finalists will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.

The finalists are as follows:

**Fiction:**

- Hannah Lillith Assadi, *Paradiso 17* (Knopf / Penguin Random House)

- Edwidge Danticat, *Dèy* (Knopf / Penguin Random House)

- Julián Delgado Lopera, *Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You* (Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company)

- Valeria Luiselli, *Beginning Middle End* (Knopf / Penguin Random House)

- Morgan Thomas, *Mad Eden* (MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)

**Nonfiction:**

- Colin Asher, *The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music* (W. W. Norton & Company)

- Abdelrahman ElGendy, *Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming* (Hogarth / Penguin Random House)

- Camonghne Felix, *Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom* (One World / Penguin Random House)

- Sara Nović, *Mother Tongue* (Random House / Penguin Random House)

- Joseph Osmundson, *Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood* (Bloomsbury Publishing)

**Poetry:**

- Victoria Chang, *Tree of Knowledge* (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)

- Carolina Ebeid, *Hide* (Graywolf Press)

- Brenda Hillman, *Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation* (Wesleyan University Press)

- Fady Joudah, *Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza* (Milkweed Editions)

- Susan Stewart, *Bramble* (University of Chicago Press)

**Translated Literature:**

- Karl Ove Knausgaard, *The School of Night* (Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken; Penguin Press / Penguin Random House)

- Vicente Luis Mora, *Centroeuropa* (Translated from the Spanish by Rahul Bery; Bellevue Literary Press)

- Intan Paramaditha, *Night of a Thousand Hells* (Translated from the Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao; Europa Editions)

- Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, *Pure Men* (Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud; Other Press)

- Samar Yazbek, *Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza* (Translated from the Arabic by Leri Price; Other Press)

**Young People’s Literature:**

- Elana K. Arnold, *Holloway* (Clarion Books / HarperCollins Publishers)

- Tae Keller, *When Tomorrow Burns* (Random House Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House)

- Keala Kendall, *That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic* (Random House Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House)

- David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels, *The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America* (Knopf Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House)

- Julian Randall, *Shook* (Henry Holt and Company (BYR) / Macmillan Publishers)