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National Book Award Winners

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Year Title & Author Historical Context
2025 The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine Alameddine, a previous National Book Award finalist, was honored for his 'boundless imagination' and his ability to blend Middle Eastern history wi...
2024 James by Percival Everett Everett's win was widely celebrated as a corrective to the American literary canon; the novel also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
2023 Blackouts by Justin Torres The book uses 'erasure poetry' to explore how LGBTQ+ history has been systematically erased or pathologized.
2022 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty At 29, Gunty was one of the youngest winners; her prose was compared to a 'midwestern' version of Zadie Smith.
2021 Hell of a Book by Jason Mott Mott used the 'absurdity' of a book tour to explore the very real trauma of racial injustice in America.
2020 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu A biting satire of Hollywood stereotypes; Yu was a professional screenwriter for 'Westworld' before winning.
2019 Trust Exercise by Susan Choi The book is famous for a mid-novel 'twist' that forces the reader to question the truth of the narrative.
2018 The Friend by Sigrid Nunez The book was a surprise bestseller; it is famous for its 'essayistic' style and its unsentimental look at the literary life.
2017 Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward With this win, Ward became the first woman to win two National Book Awards for Fiction (her first was in 2011).
2016 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Whitehead's win launched him into a rare tier of fame; the book won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
2015 Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson Johnson won this shortly after winning the Pulitzer for 'The Orphan Master's Son', marking a rare sweep of major prizes.
2014 Redeployment by Phil Klay Klay was a Marine veteran; his book is considered the 'The Things They Carried' for the Iraq War generation.
2013 The Good Lord Bird by James McBride McBride used humor to tackle the subject of slavery, making John Brown a chaotic, Shakespearean figure.
2012 The Round House by Louise Erdrich The novel brought national attention to the 'legal loophole' on reservations regarding the prosecution of non-Native offenders.
2011 Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward Ward was actually in her house during Katrina; the novel was praised for giving a 'human face' to the tragedy.
2010 Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon A 'dark horse' win from a small press; Gordon was an associate professor at Western Michigan University at the time.
2009 Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann McCann used the 'tightrope walk' as a metaphor for a city (and a world) recovering from trauma, specifically the aftermath of 9/11.
2008 Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen This 800-page book was a 'remix' of Matthiessen's earlier 'Watson Trilogy', condensed and rewritten into a single-volume masterpiece.
2007 Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson Johnson was a 'cult' favorite for decades; this win solidified his place as one of the greatest American prose stylists.
2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers Powers spent months researching neurobiology; the book is famous for its 'scientific' prose and its focus on the migration of sandhill cranes.
2005 Europe Central by William T. Vollmann At 800+ pages, it is one of the most ambitious winners in history, featuring fictionalized versions of Shostakovich and Kathe Kollwitz.
2004 The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck A controversial choice at the time; the win highlighted the NBA's interest in 'international' American stories.
2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones Jones spent ten years researching the history of Black slaveowners in America, a 'hidden' historical reality that shocked many readers.
2002 Three Junes by Julia Glass A debut novel that won the award; it was celebrated for its intricate structure and its deeply empathetic portrayal of the early AIDS crisis.
2001 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen The book was famously at the center of a 'feud' with Oprah Winfrey after Franzen expressed discomfort with her book club logo.
2000 In America by Susan Sontag Sontag was a world-renowned essayist; this work was her final major fiction project and won amidst a field of much younger finalists.
1999 Waiting by Ha Jin Ha Jin wrote the novel in English (his second language) after the Tiananmen Square protests led him to remain in the United States.
1998 Charming Billy by Alice McDermott McDermott was praised for her 'miniaturist' style, proving that a quiet domestic novel could win over more sprawling epics.
1997 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier A rare debut win that became a massive bestseller; the story was inspired by local legends told by Frazier's great-great-uncle.
1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett A major upset win; the collection beat heavyweight finalists like Thomas Pynchon and George Saunders.
1995 Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth Roth considered this his best work; it is one of the most profane and linguistically energetic winners in the prize's history.
1994 A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis Gaddis was a titan of difficult, postmodern literature; this was his second NBA win (his first was for 'J R' in 1976).
1993 The Shipping News by Annie Proulx Proulx spent years visiting Newfoundland to master the local dialect and the technical language of knots and boat-building.
1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy This win turned McCarthy from a 'writer's writer' into a household name; it is the first volume of his acclaimed Border Trilogy.
1991 Mating by Norman Rush Rush spent five years as a Peace Corps director in Botswana; the novel is famous for its dense, intellectual 'voice'.
1990 Middle Passage by Charles R. Johnson Johnson was the first Black man to win since 1953; the novel blends sea-faring adventure with Buddhist and Hegelian philosophy.
1989 Spartina by John Casey Casey was an associate of the 'Iowa Writers' Workshop'; the novel is celebrated for its precise technical descriptions of boat-building.
1988 Paris Trout by Pete Dexter Dexter was a former newspaper columnist; the book's spare prose was praised for its unflinching look at institutionalized racism.
1987 Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann A major upset win; Heinemann beat out Toni Morrison's 'Beloved,' a decision that remains one of the most controversial in the prize's history.
1986 World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow Doctorow used the 1939 World's Fair as a symbol of 'the World of Tomorrow,' contrasting it with the realities of the Great Depression.
1985 White Noise by Don DeLillo This win launched DeLillo into the literary mainstream; the novel is credited with defining the 'postmodern' dread of the late 20th century.
1984 Victory over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist Gilchrist was a popular voice in Southern literature; her win continued the NBA tradition of honoring short story collections as equal to novels.
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker The first novel by a Black woman to win both the NBA and the Pulitzer; it faced significant censorship attempts for its raw depiction of abuse.
1982 Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike Updike won the Triple Crown for this book: the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
1981 Plains Song: For Female Voices by Wright Morris This was Morris's second NBA win; he used his 'camera-eye' prose to capture the stark landscapes of the American Midwest.
1980 Sophie's Choice by William Styron The novel was a massive cultural event but also sparked intense debate over the depiction of a non-Jewish victim of the Holocaust.
1979 Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien O'Brien beat out John Irving's 'The World According to Garp' for the win; it is now considered a 'magic realist' masterpiece of war fiction.
1978 Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle Settle was a co-founder of the PEN/Faulkner Award; she wrote this novel based on her own experiences living in Turkey in the 1970s.
1977 The World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe Howe spent years interviewing aging immigrants; the book is credited with sparking a massive 1970s revival of interest in Yiddish culture.
1976 The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner Stegner, the 'Dean of Western Writers,' won this at age 67, solidifying his reputation as a master of the domestic and historical novel.
1975 Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone Widely considered the definitive novel of the 'post-60s comedown', capturing the cynicism and drug culture of the mid-1970s.
1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer Shared the prize with Pynchon; Singer later won the Nobel Prize, praised for bringing Yiddish literature to a global audience.
1974 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon The book famously caused a scandal at the Pulitzer committee, who rejected the judges' recommendation to give it the prize, calling it 'unreadable'.
1973 Augustus by John Williams Williams is better known today for 'Stoner', but this win for his Roman epic was the only major literary prize he received during his lifetime.
1973 Chimera by John Barth Shared the 1973 prize with John Williams; Barth was a leading figure in the 'metafiction' movement that defined 70s experimental literature.
1972 The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor O'Connor had died seven years prior; in 2009, this collection was voted the best NBA winner in the prize's entire 60-year history.
1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow This was Bellow's third and final NBA win, making him the most decorated fiction author in the history of the prize.
1970 them by Joyce Carol Oates Oates wrote the book based on the real-life experiences of one of her students, merging fiction with the raw social history of urban America.
1969 Steps by Jerzy Kosiński Kosiński's win was controversial due to the book's graphic nature; he later faced unproven allegations that he had not written his books alone.
1968 The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder Wilder's final novel, published when he was 70 years old. The author of 'Our Town' and 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' remained the only person to win...
1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud Malamud's second NBA win; the novel was widely read as a timely allegory for the racial injustices and civil rights struggles in 1960s America.
1966 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter Porter won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for this collection, cementing her status as a titan of the short story format.
1965 Herzog by Saul Bellow The novel spent 42 weeks on the bestseller list, proving that 'intellectual' fiction about a professor could be a massive commercial hit.
1964 The Centaur by John Updike This was Updike's first of two National Book Awards; it is noted for its daring structure that alternates between modern realism and Greek mythology.
1963 Morte d'Urban by J.F. Powers Powers was famous for writing almost exclusively about the lives of Catholic priests, treating their struggles with secular humor.
1962 The Moviegoer by Walker Percy A massive upset victory; the book was a debut novel from a small publisher and beat out heavyweight favorites like J.D. Salinger's 'Franny and Zoeey'.
1961 The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter The 'submerged town' in the novel was based on the real-life flooding of towns during the construction of the Raystown Dam in Pennsylvania.
1960 Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth At just 26 years old, Roth was the youngest winner in the prize's history at the time; the book sparked fierce debate within the Jewish community f...
1959 The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud Malamud's win was notable for bringing the distinct rhythms of Jewish-American speech and immigrant experience to the literary mainstream.
1958 The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever Cheever's first novel; though he was already famous for his short stories in The New Yorker, this win proved he could handle the longer novel form.
1957 The Field of Vision by Wright Morris Morris was also a professional photographer; he often included photos in his other books to create a unique 'photo-text' narrative style.
1956 Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara The book was banned in several cities, including Detroit and Albany, due to its 'obscene' content, which only helped propel it to the top of the be...
1955 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel by Isaac Babel This was a posthumous win; Babel had been executed by the Soviet secret police in 1940, and his work was only beginning to be rediscovered in the W...
1954 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow This win launched Bellow to literary stardom; he would eventually win two more National Book Awards, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize.
1953 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Ellison was the first Black author to win the National Book Award; the novel is now considered one of the most important works of the 20th century.
1952 From Here to Eternity by James Jones The book was highly controversial at the time for its use of profanity and its realistic depiction of the brutality within the U.S. military ranks.
1951 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner Faulkner won this award just months after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, cementing his status as the premier voice of American Modernism.
1950 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren The inaugural winner of the NBA for Fiction; Algren was famously a close friend and lover of Simone de Beauvoir, who dedicated her book 'The Mandar...