Update: You can find the list of the 2020 National Book Awards winners here and watch a recording of the event here. 

Each year, the National Book Awards recognize and reward excellence in literature in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. Overseen by the National Book Foundation, the award is considered one of the most prestigious literary prizes. Each fall they announce a longlist of titles nominated for the awards, followed by a list of finalists ahead of the final announcement in November. 

The New York Public Library is pleased to have nearly all of the 2020 National Book Award Finalists in our collections, in various formats. Dive into some of the best books of the year!

Fiction

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw audio only

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Nonfiction

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne

Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland

How to Make a Slave and Other Essays by Jerald Walker

Poetry

A Treatise on Stars by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Fantasia for the Man in Blue by Tommye Blount

DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi

Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

Translated Literature

High as the Waters Rise by Anja Kampmann, translated by Anne Posten

The Family Clause by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, translated by Alice Menzies

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles

The Bitch by Pilar Quintana, translated by Lisa Dillman

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

 

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Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.