The winners of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced on March 13th at the New School in New York.

Founded in 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Awards are given annually to honor outstanding writing and to foster a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. The awards are open to any book published in the United States in English (including translations). The National Book Critics Circle comprises nearly 600 critics and editors from leading newspapers and magazines providing coverage of books.

For more information about the National Book Critics Circle and the National Book Critics Circle Awards, go to http://bookcritics.org/.
 

2013 Winners

Fiction
AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf)

Nonfiction
FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sherri Fink (Crown)

Autobiography
FAREWELL, FRED VOODOO: A Letter from Haiti, by Amy Wilentz (Simon & Schuster)

Biography
JONATHAN SWIFT: His Life and His World, by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)

Criticism
DISTANT READING by Franco Moretti (Verso)

Poetry
METAPHYSICAL DOG by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

John Leonard Prize (established this year to recognize outstanding first books in any genre)
Anthony Marra for A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA (Hogarth)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
William Deresiewicz

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
Rolando Hinojosa-Smith
 

2013 Finalists

Fiction

• AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf)
• SOMEONE by Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• THE INFATUATIONS by Javier Marias (Knopf)
• A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING by Ruth Ozeki (Viking)
• THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)

Nonfiction

• WHITEY BULGER: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice, by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy (Norton)
• FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sherri Fink (Crown)
• THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE by David Finkel (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• THE UNWINDING: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• GOING CLEAR: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf)

Autobiography

• WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala (Knopf)
• THE BOOK OF MY LIVES by Aleksandar Hemon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• THE FARAWAY NEARBY by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)
• MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)
• FAREWELL, FRED VOODOO: A Letter from Haiti, by Amy Wilentz (Simon & Schuster)

Biography

• LAWRENCE IN ARABIA: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)
• JONATHAN SWIFT: His Life and His World, by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)
• BACH: Music in the Castle of Heaven, by John Eliot Gardiner (Knopf)
• HOLDING ON UPSIDE DOWN: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore, by Linda Leavell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• BIRTH CERTIFICATE: The Story of Danilo Kis, by Mark Thompson (Cornell University Press)

Criticism

• WHITE GIRLS by Hilton Als (McSweeney’s)
• CONFRONTING THE CLASSICS: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations, by Mary Beard (Liveright)
• THE KRAUS PROJECT: Essays by Karl Kraus, translated and annotated by Jonathan Franzen with Paul Reiter and Daniel Kehlmann (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• FORTY-ONE FALSE STARTS: Essays on Artists and Writers, by Janet Malcolm (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• DISTANT READING by Franco Moretti (Verso)

Poetry

• METAPHYSICAL DOG by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• STAY, ILLUSION by Lucie Brock-Broido (Knopf)
• BLOWOUT by Denise Duhamel (University of Pittsburgh Press)
• ELEGY OWED by Bob Hicok (Copper Canyon)
• MILK AND FILTH by Carmen Gimenez Smith (University of Arizona Press)

John Leonard Prize (established this year to recognize outstanding first books in any genre)

• Anthony Marra for A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA (Hogarth)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

• Katherine A. Powers

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award

• Rolando Hinojosa-Smith