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The National Books Awards will award another batch of literature this year and the finalists have already been announced by the award-giving body.
The event should give the spotlight to up-and-coming writers of this year, while several others are making a come.
For instance, Yoko Tawada with her translator Margaret Mistutani were nominated for Translated Literature after snatching the National Book Award for the same category in 2018. Meanwhile, nominees Gayl Jones, Scholastique Mukasonga and Sharon Olds are also on the roster.
Jones was nominated for the Fiction category for her “The Birdcatcher,” Mukasonga gets a spot for the Translated Literature for her “Kibogo,” and Olds for the Poetry Category for her “Balladz.”
Writers Sarah Tess Gunty (The Rabbit Hutch), Sarah Thankam Mathews (All This Could Be Different), and Alejandro Varela (The Town of Babylon) were all nominated for the Fiction category for their debut books.
The National Books Awards have also decided to give honor to all the finalists for the Young People’s Literature Category, the first type of initiative from the organization.
The finalists include Tommie Smith, who is known not just for being an athlete in the United States but someone who vocally expressed his condemnation against racial discrimination during the 1968 Summer Olympics held in Mexico.
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The National Books Awards are preparing to announce the winners, which will be done this November 16 in New York City.
Art Spiegelman and Traci D. Hall will also receive lifetime achievement awards. Hall serves as the first African American woman in the American Library Association as an executive director.
National Books Awards will also give out monetary benefits, amounting to $10,000, to the winners of the categories.
Listed below is the full list of all the finalists and the book they have written.
Fiction
Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch
Gayl Jones, The Birdcatcher
Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different
Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon
Nonfiction
Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir
Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
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Poetry
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Look at This Blue
John Keene, Punks: New & Selected Poems
Sharon Olds, Balladz
Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian
Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense
Translated Literature
Jon Fosse, A New Name: Septology VI-VII. Translated by Damion Searls
Scholastique Mukasonga, Kibogo. Translated by Mark Polizzotti
Mónica Ojeda, Jawbone. Translated by Sarah Booker
Samanta Schweblin, Seven Empty Houses. Translated by Megan McDowell
Yoko Tawada, Scattered All Over the Earth. Translated by Margaret Mitsutani
Young People’s Literature
Kelly Barnhill, The Ogress and the Orphans
Sonora Reyes, The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes and Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice
Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage
Lisa Yee, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
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