National Book Awards 2021 shortlists announced

Wednesday, 6 October 2021 Books+Publishing

In the US, the finalists for the 2021 National Book Awards have been announced.

The shortlisted titles are:

Fiction

Nonfiction

A Little Devil in America: Notes in praise of black performance (Hanif Abdurraqib, Allen Lane)
Running Out: In search of water on the high plains (Lucas Bessire, Princeton University Press)
Tastes Like War: A memoir (Grace M Cho, Feminist Press)
Covered with Night: A story of murder and Indigenous justice in early America (Nicole Eustace, Liveright)
All That She Carried: The journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black family keepsake (Tiya Miles, Random House)

Poetry

What Noise Against the Cane (Desiree C Bailey, Yale University Press)
Floaters (Martín Espada, W W Norton)
Sho (Douglas Kearney, Wave Books)
A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure (Hoa Nguyen, Wave Books)
The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void (Jackie Wang, Nightboat Books)

Translated Literature

Winter in Sokcho (Elisa Shua Dusapin, trans by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, Scribe)
Peach Blossom Paradise (Ge Fei, trans by Canaan Morse, New York Review Books)
The Twilight Zone (Nona Fernández, trans by Natasha Wimmer, Graywolf Press)
When We Cease to Understand the World (Benjamín Labatut, trans by Adrian Nathan West, Pushkin)
Planet of Clay (Samar Yazbek, trans by Leri Price, World Editions)

Young People’s Literature

The Legend of Auntie Po (Shing Yin Khor, Kokila)
Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Malinda Lo, Hodder Paperbacks)
Too Bright to See (Kyle Lukoff, Dial Books)
Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s promise to the people (Kekla Magoon, Walker Books)
Me (Moth) (Amber McBride, Feiwel and Friends).

The awards are administered by the US National Book Foundation. The winners will be announced at an online event on 17 November 2021.