The finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced in six categories: Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry. Other announcements included two lifetime achievement awards, the NBCC Service Award, the winner and finalists for the Nona Balakian Citation, the finalists for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, and the shortlist for the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the NBCC Awards. Distinguished guest Maxine Hong Kingston, who won the 1976 NBCC Nonfiction Award for THE WOMAN WARRIOR, will speak in honor of the semicentennial. The awards will be presented on March 20th at the New School in New York City, in a ceremony that will be free and open to the public.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin Hotel and considered among the most prestigious in American letters, are the sole prizes bestowed by a jury of working critics and book review editors.

For more information about the National Book Critics Circle and the National Book Critics Circle Awards, please click here.
 

2024 Finalists

Autobiography

• THE LAST FIRE SEASON: A Personal and Pyronatural History, by Manjula Martin (Pantheon)
• LITTLE SEED by Wei Tchou (Deep Vellum)
• THE MINOTAUR AT CALLE LANZA by Zito Madu (Belt Publishing)
• MOTHER ARCHIVE: A Dominican Family Memoir, by Erika Morillo (University of Iowa Press)
• PATRIOT: A Memoir, by Alexei Navalny, translated from the Russian by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel (Knopf)

Biography

• CANDIDA ROYALLE AND THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION: A History from Below, by Jane Kamensky (W. W. Norton & Company)
• CANDY DARLING: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, by Cynthia Carr (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• FAMILY ROMANCE: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers, by Jean Strouse (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• NIGHT FLYER: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, by Tiya Miles (Penguin Press)
• THE WORLD SHE EDITED: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, by Amy Reading (Mariner Books)

Criticism

• BLACK MEME: A History of the Images that Make Us, by Legacy Russell (Verso)
• THE BLUE PERIOD: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, by Jesse McCarthy (University of Chicago Press)
• DISORDERED ATTENTION: How We Look at Art and Performance Today, by Claire Bishop (Verso)
• INTERVALS by Marianne Brooker (Fitzcarraldo)
• THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR: On Basketball and Ascension, by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

Fiction

• BEAUTYLAND by Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• GODWIN by Joseph O'Neill (Pantheon)
• JAMES by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
• MY FRIENDS by Hisham Matar (Random House)
• US FOOLS by Nora Lange (Two Dollar Radio)

Nonfiction

• THE ACHILLES TRAP: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq, by Steve Coll (Penguin Press)
• CHALLENGER: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, by Adam Higginbotham (Avid Reader Press)
• THE FREAKS CAME OUT TO WRITE: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture, by Tricia Romano (PublicAffairs)
• RELINQUISHED: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, by Gretchen Sisson (St. Martin’s Press)
• WE'RE ALONE by Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf Press)

Poetry

• AN AUTHENTIC LIFE by Jennifer Chang (Copper Canyon)
• CONSIDER THE ROOSTER by Oliver Baez Bendorf (Nightboat)
• INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LOVERS by Dawn Lundy Martin (Nightboat)
• SCATTERED SNOWS, TO THE NORTH by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• WRONG NORMA by Anne Carson (New Directions)

Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize

• THE CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO: STAR OF THE SEA by Elias Khoury, translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies (Archipelago), Fiction
• HERSCHT 07769 by László Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (New Directions), Fiction
• A LAST SUPPER OF QUEER APOSTLES by Pedro Lemebel, translated from the Spanish by Gwendolyn Harper (Penguin Classics), Nonfiction
• MELVILL by Rodrigo Fresán, translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter), Fiction
• O by Judith Kiros, translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson (World Poetry), Poetry
• TRACES OF ENAYAT by Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger (Transit), Nonfiction

John Leonard Prize

• BY THE FIRE WE CARRY: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land, by Rebecca Nagle (Harper)
• FEEDING GHOSTS: A Graphic Memoir, by Tessa Hulls (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth)
• MISS MAY DOES NOT EXIST: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius, by Carrie Courogen (St. Martin’s Press)
• WARD TOWARD by Cindy Juyoung Ok (Yale University Press)
• WHEN THE CLOCK BROKE: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s, by John Ganz (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

NBCC Service Award

• Lori Lynn Turner

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

• Lauren Michele Jackson

Finalists

• Joanna Biggs
• Sarah Chihaya
• Rhoda Feng
• Jeremy Lybarger

Toni Morrison Achievement Award

• Third World Press

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award

• Sandra Cisneros