2026 National Book Awards Unveil Longlists Across Major Categories

Overview of the 2026 National Book Awards

The longlists for the 2026 National Book Awards are being revealed this week, showcasing a diverse range of literary talent. Five finalists in each award category—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature—will be announced on October 6, leading up to the winners being unveiled during the 77th annual awards ceremony on November 18 in New York City.

Fiction Longlist

• Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
• Red Ants by Kimberly Blaeser (Counterpoint)
• Dèy by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
• Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You by Julián Delgado Lopera (Liveright)
• Python’s Kiss by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
• The Disappearers by Marlon James (Riverhead)
• Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)
• Passengers by Alexander Maksik (Europa)
• The Renovation by Kenan Orhan (FSG)
• Mad Eden by Morgan Thomas (MCD)

Nonfiction Longlist

• Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America by Rozina Ali (Crown)
• The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher (Norton)
• Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground by Zayd Ayers Dohrn (Norton)
• Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming by Abdelrahman ElGendy (Hogarth)
• Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom by Camonghne Felix (One World)
• The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home by Wil Haygood (Knopf)
• Mother Tongue by Sara Nović (Random House)
• Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood by Joseph Osmundson (Bloomsbury)
• The Evolution of Fire: Essays on Crisis and Becoming by Angela Pelster (Milkweed)
• A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint by Wendy S. Walters (Scribner)

Poetry Longlist

• Tree of Knowledge by Victoria Chang (FSG)
• Hide by Carolina Ebeid (Graywolf)
• Still House in the Desert: An Eco-Contemplation by Brenda Hillman (Wesleyan)
• The Bronze Arms by Richie Hofmann (Knopf)
• Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza by Fady Joudah (Milkweed)
• We by Layli Long Soldier (Graywolf)
• Promise/Threat by Jonah Mixon-Webster (Knopf)
• JOAN by Jake Rose (University of Chicago)
• Horses by Jake Skeets (Milkweed)
• Bramble by Susan Stewart (University of Chicago)

Translated Literature Longlist

• My Dreadful Body by Egana Djabbarova, translated by Lisa C. Hayden (New Vessel)
• Now I Surrender by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer (Riverhead)
• Eden at Dawn by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Restless)
• The School of Night by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken (Penguin Press)
• To the East of the East by Ping Lu, translated by Jeremy Tiang (World Editions)
• Centroeuropa by Vicente Luis Mora, translated by Rahul Bery (Bellevue)
• Night of a Thousand Hells by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao (Europa)
• Pure Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud (Other Press)
• The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale (New Directions)
• Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price (Other Press)

Young People’s Literature Longlist

• The Free Verse Society by Delali Adjoa (Peachtree Teen)
• Holloway by Elana K. Arnold (Clarion)
• The Celestial Seas by T.A. Chan (Viking)
• When Tomorrow Burns by Tae Keller (Random House)
• That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic by Keala Kendall (Random House)
• The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels (Knopf)
• The Moon Without Stars by Chanel Miller (Philomel)
• Clothes to Make You Smile: Patrick Kelly Designs His Dreams by Eric Darnell Pritchard, illustrated by Shannon Wright (Abrams)
• Shook by Julian Randall (Holt)
• Life on the Moon by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr (Knopf)

A version of this article appeared in the 09/21/2026 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: