Image courtesy of the National Book Awards

Last week the National Book Foundation rolled out the longlists of nominees in all five categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. 

Each list consists of ten nominees, which will shrink to five before the final award in each category is announced on October 8 at the National Book Awards Ceremony.

As an indie press ourselves, we couldn’t help but notice that the longlist for fiction doesn’t contain but one book from an indie press. On the other hand, every single nominee on the poetry list is from an indie press. 

Congratulations to all nominees! For a full list, please see below.

Fiction

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random House)

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi (Henry Holt)

Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (One World)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (Riverhead)

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami (Pantheon)

Black Light: Stories by Kimberly King Parsons (Vintage)

The Need by Helen Phillips (Simon & Schuster)

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips (Knopf)

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Nonfiction

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib (University of Texas Press)

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom (Grove)

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom (New Press)

What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché (Penguin)

The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan)

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)

Burn the Place: A Memoir by Iliana Regan (Agate Midway)

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (University of North Carolina Press)

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (Riverhead)

Solitary by Albert Woodfox with Leslie George (Grove)

Poetry

Variations on Dawn and Dusk by Dan Beachy-Quick (Omnidawn)

The Tradition by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon)

“I”: New and Selected Poems by Toi Derricotte (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix (Haymarket)

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf)

A Sand Book by Ariana Reines (Tin House)

Dunce by Mary Ruefle (Wave)

Be Recorder by Carmen Giménez Smith (Graywolf)

Sight Lines by Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon)

Doomstead Days by Brian Teare (Nightboat)

Translated Literature 

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl’s Book by Naja Marie Aidt and translated by Denise Newman

The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil’s Everyday Insurrections by Eliane Brum and translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty (Graywolf Press)

Space Invaders by Nona Fernández and translated by Natasha Wimmer (Graywolf)

Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth and translated by Charlotte Barslund (Verso Fiction)

Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa and translated by Leri Price (FSG)

Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai and translated by Ottilie Mulzet (New Directions)

The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga and translated by Jordan Stump (Archipelago)

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder (Pantheon)

Crossing by Pajtim Statovci and translated by David Hackston (Pantheon)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead)

Young People’s Literature

The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illus. by Kadir Nelson (HMH/Versify)

SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking)

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (Random House/Make Me a World)

A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata, illus. by Julia Kuo (Atheneum/Dlouhy)

Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds, illus. by Alexander Nabaum (Atheneum/Dlouhy)

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay (Penguin/Kokila)

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

1919: The Year That Changed America by Martin W. Sandler (Bloomsbury)

Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve (Seven Stories)

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable, illus. by Ellen T. Crenshaw (First Second)