The longlists for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced in six categories --- Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry --- as well as the longlist for the Barrios Book in Translation Prize,

The finalists will be announced on January 20th, along with the finalists for the John Leonard Prize (for the best first book in any genre) and the honorees for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Toni Morrison Achievement Award. The National Book Critics Circle Awards will be presented on March 26th at the New School in New York City.

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.
 

2025 Longlist

Autobiography

• BOOK OF LIVES: A Memoir of Sorts, by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday)
• THE BROKEN KING by Michael Thomas (Grove Press)
• I'LL TELL YOU WHEN I'M HOME: A Memoir, by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
• MEMORIAL DAYS: A Memoir, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
• MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME by Arundhati Roy (Scribner)
• PAPER GIRL: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America, by Beth Macy (Penguin Press)
• SHATTERED: A Memoir – Honest Hospital Dispatches on Physical Loss, Parenthood, and Finding Hope, Gratitude, and Love, by Hanif Kureishi (Ecco)
• THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• A TRUCE THAT IS NOT PEACE by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• TWICE BORN: Finding My Father in the Margins of Biography, by Hester Kaplan (Catapult)

Biography

• BUCKLEY: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, by Sam Tanenhaus (Random House)
• CONSTANTINE CAVAFY: A New Biography, by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• LOVE, QUEENIE: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star, by Mayukh Sen (W. W Norton and Company)
• A PERFECT TURMOIL: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled, by Alex Green (Bellevue Literary Press)
• PRIDE AND PLEASURE: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution, by Amanda Vaill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• QUEEN MOTHER: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore, by Ashley D. Farmer (Pantheon)
• SISTER, SINNER: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, by Claire Hoffman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• TROUBLEMAKER: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford, by Carla Kaplan (Harper)
• WILD THING: A Life of Paul Gauguin, by Sue Prideaux (W. W. Norton and Company)
• WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE SEA MONSTERS OF LOVE: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World, by Philip Hoare (Pegasus Books)

Criticism

• ALGORITHM OF THE NIGHT: Film Writing, 2019-2025, by A.S. Hamrah (n+1)
• AUTHORITY: Essays, by Andrea Long Chu (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• DISMANTLING THE MASTER'S CLOCK: On Race, Space, and Time, by Rasheedah Phillips (AK Press)
• ERIK SATIE THREE PIECE SUITE by Ian Penman (Semiotext(e))
• EXOPHONY: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue, by Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda (New Directions)
• GREYHOUND: A Memoir, by Joanna Pocock (Soft Skull Press)
• HAYEK'S BASTARDS: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right, by Quinn Slobodian (Zone Books)
• MEDIUM HOT: Images in the Age of Heat, by Hito Steyerl (Verso Books)
• ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
• TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY: Writing as an Other, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Harvard University Press)

Fiction

• THE ANTIDOTE by Karen Russell (Knopf)
• AUDITION by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books)
• THE BOOK OF RECORDS by Madeleine Thien (W. W. Norton and Company)
• HEART THE LOVER by Lily King (Grove Press)
• LONG DISTANCE by Ayşegül Savaş (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME (Book III) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Directions)
• SEA, POISON by Caren Beilin (New Directions)
• THE SOUTH by Tash Aw (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• WE DO NOT PART by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hogarth)
• THE WILDERNESS by Angela Flournoy (Mariner Books)

Nonfiction

• AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A New History of the New World, by Greg Grandin (Penguin Press)
• DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins, by Barbara Demick (Random House)
• EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI, by Karen Hao (Penguin Press)
• THE INTERMEDIARIES: A Weimar Story, by Brandy Schillace (W. W. Norton and Company)
• KING OF KINGS: The Iranian Revolution, a Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)
• MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: Essays & Writings, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper)
• NO MORE TEARS: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson, by Gardiner Harris (Random House)
• A RETURN TO SELF: Excursions in Exile, Aatish Taseer (Catapult)
• SICK AND DIRTY: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness, by Michael Koresky (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America, by Michael Luo (Doubleday)

Poetry

• AFTER YOU WERE, I AM by Camille Ralphs (McSweeney's Publishing)
• CHRONICLE OF DRIFTING by Yuki Tanaka (Copper Canyon Press)
• DEATH OF THE FIRST IDEA by Rickey Laurentiis (Knopf)
• INTO THE HUSH by Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon Press)
• NIGHT WATCH by Kevin Young (Knopf)
• THE OTHER LOVE by Henri Cole (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• SALVAGE by Hedgie Choi (University of Wisconsin Press)
• SMALL LIVES by Gary Jackson (University of New Mexico Press)
• STAY DEAD by Natalie Shapero (Copper Canyon Press)
• UNRAVEL by Tolu Oloruntoba (McClelland & Stewart)

Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize

• BODIES FOUND IN VARIOUS PLACES by Elvira Hernández, translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky and Alec Schumacher (Cardboard House), Poetry
• EXOPHONY: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue, by Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda (New Directions), Nonfiction
• GAZA: The Poem Said Its Piece, by Nasser Rabah, translated from the Arabic by Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal and Khaled Al-Hilli (City Lights), Poetry
• HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories), Fiction
• NEAR DISTANCE by Hanna Stoltenberg, translated from the Norwegian by Wendy H. Gabrielsen (Biblioasis), Fiction
• SAD TIGER by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer (Seven Stories Press), Nonfiction
• THE FROG IN THE THROAT by Markus Werner, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (NYRB Classics), Fiction
• THE RUINS by Ye Hui, translated from the Chinese by Dong Li (Deep Vellum), Poetry
• THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken (New Directions), Fiction
• UGLINESS by Moshtari Hilal, translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer (New Vessel Press), Nonfiction
• WE DO NOT PART by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hogarth), Fiction
• WICKERWORK by Christian Lehnert, translated from the German by Richard Sieburth (Archipelago), Poetry