About The National Book Awards: “The mission of the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America.”
To learn more and to see lists of all the National Book Award winners and finalists , visit the National Book Foundation website.
2011 National Book Awards
Fiction Winner — Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
Fiction Finalists — Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn | Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife | Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic | Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision
Nonfiction Winner — Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Nonfiction Finalists — Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism | Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution | Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention | Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout
Poetry Winner — Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split
Poetry Finalists — Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch | Carl Phillips, Double Shadow | Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 | Bruce Smith, Devotions
Young People’s Literature Winner — Thanhha Lai, Inside Out & Back Again
Young People’s Literature Finalists — Franny Billingsley, Chime | Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy | Albert Marrin, Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy | Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now
2010 National Book Awards
Fiction Winner — Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
Fiction Finalists — Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America | Nicole Krauss, Great House | Lionel Shriver, So Much for That | Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel
Nonfiction Winner — Patti Smith, Just Kids
Nonfiction Finalists — Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea | John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq | Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward | Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War
Poetry Winner — Terrance Hayes, Lighthead
Poetry Finalists — Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City | James Richardson, By the Numbers | C.D. Wright, One with Others | Monica Youn, Ignatz
Young People’s Literature Winner — Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
Young People’s Literature Finalists — Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker | Laura McNeal, Dark Water | Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown | Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer