The finalists for this year’s National Book Award have been announced, in a ceremony at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home hosted by author Pat Conroy. The five finalists in each category were chosen by panels of judges. The winners will be announced on 17 November at the National Book Awards ceremony, to be held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
The fiction judges are: Andrei Codrescu, Samuel. R. Delany, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott, and Carolyn See. The finalists are:
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (published by Alfred A. Knopf)
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (McPherson)
Great House by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
So Much for That by Lionel Shriver (Harper)
I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita (Coffee House)
The nonfiction judges are: Blake Bailey, Marjorie Garber, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Seth Lerer, and Sallie Tisdale. The finalists are:
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (Spiegel & Grau)
Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq by John W. Dower (W.W. Norton/The New Press)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)
Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward by Justin Spring (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War by Megan K. Stack (Doubleday)
The poetry judges are: Rae Armantrout, Cornelius Eady, Linda Gregerson, Jeffrey McDaniel, and Brenda Shaughnessy. The finalists are:
The Eternal City by Kathleen Graber (Princeton University)
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes (Viking Penguin)
By the Numbers by James Richardson (Copper Canyon)
One with Others by C.D. Wright (Copper Canyon)
Ignatz by Monicai Youn (Four Way)
The young people’s literature judges are: Laban Carrick Hill, Kelly Link, Tor Seidler, Hope Anita Smith, and Sara Zarr. The finalists are:
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine (Philomel)
Dark Water by Laura McNeal (Alfred A. Knopf)
Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers (Amistad)
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Amistad)