The Winners of the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards Are Here
The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards are here. Prize-winning books were selected from 30 finalists spread across the six categories of autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, and poetry. The Awards honor books published in 2024.
In addition to the six categories above, the National Book Critics Circle hands out two additional honors: the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book and the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation.
Here are this year’s winners in each category.
- Fiction: My Friends by Hisham Matar
- Nonfiction: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham
- Biography: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr
- Autobiography: Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, translation by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel
- Poetry: Wrong Norma by Anne Carson
- Criticism: There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
- The John Leonard Prize for Best First Book: Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
- The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation: A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Pedro Lemebel, translation by Gwendolyn Harper
Additional honors went to Lauren Michele Jackson with the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing; Sandra Cisneros, earning the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award; Third World Press for the Toni Morrison Achievement Award; and Lori Lynn Turner for the NBCC Service Award.
The National Book Critics Circle is a nonprofit that serves a wide range of those involved in literary criticism. This includes professional reviewers, bloggers, publishing professionals, and more. It was founded in April 1974 at the Algonquin Hotel with the intent of taking the Algonquin round table discussions to a national level.
Learn more about this year’s winners at the National Book Critics Circle website.
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