The finalists will be announced on Tuesday, October 1, and the winners in all categories will be revealed at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 20, 2024.

FICTION

‘Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots

Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

Jessica Anthony, The Most

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

Percival Everett, James

Miranda July, All Fours

Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

Hisham Matar, My Friends

Sam Sax, Yr Dead

Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection

NONFICTION

Hanif Abdurraqib, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

Rebecca Boyle, Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are

Jason De León, Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling

Eliza Griswold, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church

Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Ernest Scheyder, The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives

Richard Slotkin, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America

Deborah Jackson Taffa, Whiskey Tender

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders

POETRY

Anne Carson, Wrong Norma

Fady Joudah, […]

Dorianne Laux, Life on Earth

Gregory Pardlo, Spectral Evidence

Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Silver

Octavio Quintanilla, The Book of Wounded Sparrows

m.s. RedCherries, mother

Diane Seuss, Modern Poetry

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Something About Living

Elizabeth Willis, Liontaming in Amerca

TRANSLATED LITERATURE

Nasser Abu Srour, The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom
Translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren

Bothayna Al-Essa, The Book Censor’s Library
Translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain

Linnea Axelsson, Ædnan
Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel

Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)
Translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland

Layla Martínez, Woodworm
Translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott

Fiston Mwanza Mujila, The Villain’s Dance
Translated from the French by Roland Glasser

Fernanda Trías, Pink Slime
Translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary

Fernando Vallejo, The Abyss
Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert

Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, Taiwan Travelogue
Translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

Samar Yazbek, Where the Wind Calls Home
Translated from the Arabic by Leri Price

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Olivia A. Cole, Ariel Crashes a Train

Violet Duncan, Buffalo Dreamer

Margarita Engle, Wild Dreamers

Josh Galarza, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky

Erin Entrada Kelly, The First State of Being

Randy Ribay, Everything We Never Had

Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Kareem Between

Angela Shanté, The Unboxing of a Black Girl

Ali Terese, Free Period

Alicia D. Williams, Mid-Air