The National Book Foundation won’t announce the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction until October 8 — when it announces all of its annual winners, followed by a ceremony in November — but you can get started on the longlist of nominees now. There are ten, including Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boy’s. Whitehead won the award three years ago for The Underground Railroad. Other titles include Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble and Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James. (Michael B. Jordan has announced that he’s adapting the latter with Warner Bros., while FX is reportedly turning Brodesser-Akner’s work into a limited series.)
Also included is Helen Phillips’s The Need, a reality-twister story of a mother who discovers an intruder in her home who looks identical to her. You can also read about a number of the selected works on Vulture’s list of the 37 books we couldn’t wait to read this year, including Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans.
Here’s the whole list:
- Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble Random House / Penguin Random House
- Susan Choi, Trust Exercise Henry Holt & Company / Macmillan Publishers
- Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Corina: Stories One World / Penguin Random House
- Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
- Laila Lalami, The Other Americans Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House
- Kimberly King Parsons, Black Light: Stories Vintage / Penguin Random House
- Helen Phillips, The Need Simon & Schuster
- Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House
- Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Penguin Press / Penguin Random House
- Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys Doubleday / Penguin Random House
Congrats, authors. Happy reading, the rest of us.
