The winners of the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced on March 15, 2018 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 NBCC comprises more than 700 critics and editors from leading newspapers, magazines and online publications.

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

2017 Winners

Autobiography
NINE CONTINENTS: A Memoir In and Out of China, by Xiaolu Guo (Grove)

Biography
PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser (Metropolitan Books)

Criticism
YOU PLAY THE GIRL: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, by Carina Chocano (Mariner)

Fiction
IMPROVEMENT by Joan Silber (Counterpoint)

Nonfiction
THE EVANGELICALS: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster)

Poetry
WHEREAS by Layli Long Soldier (Graywolf)

John Leonard Prize
HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
Charles Finch

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
John McPhee

2017 Finalists

Autobiography

• THE BEST WE COULD DO: An Illustrated Memoir, by Thi Bui (Abrams)
• HUNGER: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Harper)
• ADMISSIONS: Life as a Brain Surgeon, by Henry Marsh (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins)
• THE GIRL FROM THE METROPOL HOTEL: Growing Up in Communist Russia, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated by Anna Summers (Penguin)
• NINE CONTINENTS: A Memoir In and Out of China, by Xiaolu Guo (Grove)

Biography

• PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser (Metropolitan Books)
• THE INVENTION OF ANGELA CARTER: A Biography, by Edmund Gordon (Oxford University Press)
• THE KELLOGGS: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, by Howard Markel (Pantheon)
• GORBACHEV: His Life and Times, by William Taubman (W.W. Norton)
• HOOVER: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, by Kenneth Whyte (Knopf)

Criticism

• YOU PLAY THE GIRL: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, by Carina Chocano (Mariner)
• THE ART OF DEATH: Writing the Final Story, by Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf)
• GUIDEBOOK TO RELATIVE STRANGERS: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History, by Camille T. Dungy (W. W. Norton)   
• TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: An Essay in Forty Questions, by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House)                  
• BUNK: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts and Fake News, by Kevin Young (Graywolf)  

Fiction

• EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead)
• THE NINTH HOUR by Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS by Arundhati Roy (Knopf)
• IMPROVEMENT by Joan Silber (Counterpoint)
• SING, UNBURIED, SING by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

Nonfiction

• THE GULF: The Making of An American Sea, by Jack E. Davis (Liveright)
• THE EVANGELICALS: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster)
• THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen (Riverhead)
• BORDER: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova (Graywolf)
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYONE WHO EVER LIVED: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, by Adam Rutherford (The Experiment)

Poetry

• FOURTH PERSON SINGULAR by Nuar Alsadir (Oxford University Press)  
• EARTHLING by James Longenbach (W. W. Norton)
• WHEREAS by Layli Long Soldier (Graywolf)
• THE DARKNESS OF SNOW by Frank Ormsby by (Wake Forest University Press)
• DIRECTIONS FOR USE by Ana Ristović, translated by Steven Teref and Maja Teref (Zephyr Press)

John Leonard Prize

• HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

• David Biespiel
• Maureen Corrigan
• Charles Finch
• Ruth Franklin
• James Marcus

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award

• John McPhee