The National Book Critics Circle has announced today winners of three prestigious prizes and nominees in nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry, criticism and fiction. The awards will be announced on March 15.
- Carmen Maria Machado’s debut story collection, Her Body and Other Parties (Graywolf), is being honored with the John Leonard Prize, which recognizes an outstanding first book in any genre. It is named in honor of founding NBCC member John Leonard.
- Charles Finch is being awarded the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.
- The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award will go to John McPhee.
Here is the complete list of NBCC Award finalists:
NONFICTION:
- Jack Davis, Gulf: The Making of An American Sea (Liveright)
- Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (Simon & Schuster)
- Masha Gessen, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (Riverhead)
- Kapka Kassabova, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (Graywolf)
- Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes (The Experiment)
BIOGRAPHY:
- Caroline Fraser, Prairie Fires: The Life and Times of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Metropolitan Books)
- Edmund Gordon, The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography (Oxford)
- Howard Markel, The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek (Pantheon)
- William Taubman, Gorbachev: His Life and Times (Norton)
- Kenneth Whyte, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (Knopf)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
- Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir (Abrams)
- Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper)
- Henry Marsh, Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery (St. Martins)
- Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia(Penguin)
- Xioulu Guo, Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China (Grove)
POETRY:
- Nuar Alsadir, Fourth Person Singular (Oxford University Press)
- James Longenbach, Earthling (Norton)
- Layli Long Soldier, Whereas (Graywolf)
- Frank Ormsby, The Darkness of Snow (Wake Forest University Press)
- Ana Ristović, Directions for Use (Zephyr Press)
CRITICISM:
- Carina Chocano, You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages(Mariner)
- Edwidge Danticat, The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (Graywolf)
- Camille Dungy, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (W.W. Norton)
- Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (Coffee House)
- Kevin Young, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts and Fake News (Graywolf)
FICTION:
- Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (Riverhead)
- Alice McDermott, The Ninth Hour (FSG)
- Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Knopf)
- Joan Silber, Improvement (Counterpoint)
- Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner)
Michael Janairo 