Finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards Announced

The finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced today. The 30 finalists are spread across six categories — which include autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, and poetry — and were published in 2023.

Also announced were two lifetime achievement awards, the NBCC Service Award, finalists for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, the shortlist for the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the Toni Morrison Achievement Award for institutions, and the winner of the Nona Balakian Citation.

Here are a few of the finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards:

Autobiography

I Would Meet You Anywhere by Susan Kiyo Ito (The Ohio State University Press)

Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm by David Mas Masumoto, with artwork by Patricia Wakida, (Red Hen Press)

Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison by Ahmed Naji, translated by Katharine Halls (McSweeney’s)

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair (Simon & Schuster)

Story of a Poem by Matthew Zapruder (Unnamed Press)

Fiction

Tremor by Teju Cole (Random House)

North Woods by Daniel Mason (Random House)

I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore (Knopf)

Vengeance Is Mine by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump (Knopf)

Blackouts by Justin Torres (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Poetry

All Souls by Saskia Hamilton (Graywolf Press)

Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi (New Directions)

The Gathering of Bastards by Romeo Oriogun (University of Nebraska Press)

Information Desk by Robyn Schiff (Penguin Books)

Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan (Tin House)

Toni Morrison Award

American Library Association

On the Toni Morrison Achievement Award, award chair Jacob M. Appel said, “We honor the ALA for its longstanding commitment to equity, including its twentieth century campaigns against library segregation and for LGBT+ literature, and its perennial stance as a bulwark against those regressive and illiberal supporters of book bans. At a time when our nation’s libraries remain under relentless assault from both political and economic forces, the ALA towers over the literary landscape as a beacon for our most vulnerable voices.”

The award winners will be announced on March 21, 2024 during a ceremony open to the public that will be held at the New School in New York City. For a full list of the finalists, visit the award announcement page.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.