Today, the National Book Foundation announced the finalists in all five categories—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature—for the 2026 National Book Awards.

The winners will be announced at the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York City; winners will each receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and a statue; all finalists will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.

Hannah Lillith Assadi, Paradiso 17 Knopf / Penguin Random House

Edwidge Danticat, Dèy Knopf / Penguin Random House

Julián Delgado Lopera, Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company

Valeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End Knopf / Penguin Random House

Morgan Thomas, Mad Eden MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

Colin Asher, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music W. W. Norton & Company

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