2025 National Book Award Longlists Announced

The longlists for the 2025 National Book Awards will be rolled out throughout this week. Five finalists in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature—will be named October 1. The winners will be announced during an awards ceremony in New York City on November 20.

Fiction

• The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove)
• Flashlight by Susan Choi (FSG)
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Mariner)
• The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (FSG)
• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Knopf)
• Only Son by Kevin Moffett (McSweeney’s)
• The Antidote by Karen Russell (Knopf)
• North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford (A Strange Object)
• Palaver by Bryan Washington (FSG)
• The Pelican Child by Joy Williams (Knopf)

Publishers submitted a total of 434 books for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction. The judges are Rumaan Alam (chair), Debra Magpie Earling, Attica Locke, Elizabeth McCracken, and Cody Morrison.

Nonfiction

• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
• Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State by Caleb Gayle (Riverhead)
• Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy by Julia Ioffe (Ecco)
• For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran's Women-Led Uprising by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy (Pantheon)
• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (FSG)
• The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam by Lana Lin (Dorothy)
• Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening by Ben Ratliff (Graywolf)
• Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care by Claudia Rowe (Abrams)
• When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas (Riverhead)
• The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life by Helen Whybrow (Milkweed)

Publishers submitted a total of 652 books for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The judges are Heather Kathleen Moody Hall, Tiya Miles (chair), Raj Patel, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Eli Saslow.

Poetry

• Death Does Not End at the Sea by Gbenga Adesina (University of Nebraska)
• The New Economy by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (Copper Canyon)
• Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che (Washington Square)
• Scorched Earth by Tiana Clark (Washington Square)
• Death of the First Idea by Rickey Laurentiis (Knopf)
• Cold Thief Place by Esther Lin (Alice James)
• Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero (Copper Canyon)
• I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken (Copper Canyon)
• The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith (Scribner)
• TERROR COUNTER by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi (Deep Vellum)

Publishers submitted a total of 285 books for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry. The judges are Kate Daniels, Terrance Hayes (chair), H. Melt, Anis Mojgani, and Caridad Moro-Gronlier.

Translated Literature

• On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Directions)
• The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines)
• We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers (New Directions)
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from the Dutch by David McKay (New Vessel)
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hogarth)
• Sleep Phase by Mohamed Kheir, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger (Two Lines)
• Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton (Hogarth)
• We Computers: A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov, translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Yale)
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes (NYRB)
• Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer (Seven Stories)

Publishers submitted a total of 139 books for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The judges are Stesha Brandon (chair), Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, Bill Johnston, Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel, and Karen Tei Yamashita.

Young People’s Literature

• A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by María Dolores Águila (Roaring Brook)
• The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum (HarperCollins)
• The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze by Derrick Barnes (Viking)
• A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne (Crown)
• A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff (Dial)
• The Leaving Room by Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends)
• The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido)
• Truth Is by Hannah V. Sawyerr (Amulet)
• Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout (First Second)
• (S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi (Versify)

A total of 325 books were submitted for the 2025 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The judges are Cathy Berner, David Bowles (chair), candice iloh, Jung Kim, and Maulik Pancholy.