fiction | nonfiction | poetry | young people's literature | 5 Under 35 program

FICTION

 
2011  Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward (announced 11.16.11)

2010  Land of Misrule - Jaimy Gordon

2009  Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
2008  Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen
2007  Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
2006  The Echo Maker - Richard Powers
2005  Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
2004  The News from Paraguay - Lily Tuck 
2003  The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard
2002  Three Junes - Julia Glass
2001  The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen,
2000  In America - Susan Sontag

1999  Waiting - Ha Jin
1998  Charming Billy - Alice McDermott
1997  Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
1996  Ship Fever and Other Stories - Andrea Barrett
1995  Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth
1994  A Frolic of His Own - William Gaddis
1993  The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
1992  All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
1991  Mating - Norman Rush
1990  Middle Passage - Charles Johnson

1989  Spartina - John Casey
1988  Paris Trout - Pete Dexter
1987  Paco's Story - Larry Heinemann
1986  World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow
1985  White Noise - Don DeLillo
1984  Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories - Ellen Gilchrist
1983  The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1982  Rabbit Is Rich - John Updike
1981  Plains Song - Wright Morris
1980  Sophie's Choice - William Styron

1979  Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brian
1978  Blood Ties - Mary Lee Settle
1977  The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner
1976  Jr - William Gaddis
1975  Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone
          The Hair of Harold Roux - Thomas Williams
1974  A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer
         Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
1973  Chimera - John Barth
          Augustus - John Williams
1972  The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor - Flannery O'Connor
1971  Mr. Sammler's Planet - Saul Bellow
1970  Them - Joyce Carol Oates

1969  Steps - Jerzy Kosinski
1968  The Eighth Day - Thornton Wilder
1967  The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
1966  The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter
1965  Herzog - Saul Bellow
1964  The Centaur - John Updike
1963  Morte d'Urban - J.F. Powers
1962  The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
1961  The Waters of Kronos - Conrad Richter
1960  Goodbye Columbus - Philip Roth

1959  The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud
1958  The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
1957  The Field of Vision - Wright Morris
1956  Ten North Frederick - John O'Hara
1955  A Fable - William Faulkner
1954  The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
1953  Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
1952  From Here to Eternity - James Jones
1951  The Collected Stories of William Faulkner - William Faulkner
1950  The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren

NONFICTION

2011  The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt

2010  Just Kids - Patti Smith

2009  The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt  - T.J. Stiles
2008  The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family  - Annette Gordon-Reed
2007  Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA  - Tim Weiner
2006  The Worst Hard Time - Timothy Egan
2005  The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
2004  Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age - Kevin Boyle
2003  Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy - Carlos Eire
2002  Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson - Robert A. Caro
2001  The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression - Andrew Solomon
2000  In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex - Nathaniel Philbrick

1999  Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II - John W. Dower
1998  Slaves in the Family - Edward Ball
1997  American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson - Joseph J. Ellis
1996  An American Requiem - James Carroll
1995  The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism - Tina Rosenberg
1994  How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter - Sherwin B. Nuland
1993  United States: Essays 1952-1992 - Gore Vidal
1992  Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story - Paul Monette
1991  Freedom - Orlando Patterson
1990  The House of Morgan - Ron Chernow

1989  From Beirut to Jerusalem - Thomas L. Friedman
1988  A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam - Neil Sheehan
1987  The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes
1986  Arctic Dreams - Barry Lopez
1985  Common Ground - J. Anthony Lukas
1984  Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy - Robert V. Remini
1983  China: Alive in the Bitter Sea - Fox Butterfield
1982  The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder
1981  China Men - Maxine Hong Kingston
1980  The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe

1979      no general nonfiction awards
1978      no general nonfiction awards
1977      no general nonfiction awards
1976      no general nonfiction awards
1975      no general nonfiction awards
1974      no general nonfiction awards
1973      no general nonfiction awards
1972      no general nonfiction awards
1971      no general nonfiction awards
1970      no general nonfiction awards  

1969     no general nonfiction awards
1968     no general nonfiction awards
1967     no general nonfiction awards
1966     no general nonfiction awards
1965     no general nonfiction awards
1964     no general nonfiction awards
1963  Henry James: Vol. II, The Conquest of London; Vol. III, The Middle Years - Leon Edel
1962  The City in History - Lewis Mumford
1961  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer
1960  James Joyce - Richard Ellman

1959  Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame De Stael - J. Christopher Herold
1958  The Lion and the Throne - Catherine Drinker Bowen
1957  Russia Leaves the War - George F. Kennan
1956  An American in Italy - Herbert Kubly
1955  The Measure of Man - Joseph W. Krutch
1954  A Stillness at Appomattox - Bruce Catton
1953  The Course of an Empire - Bernard A. De Voto
1952  The Sea Around Us - Rachel Carson
1951  Herman Melville - Newton Arvin
1950  Ralph Waldo - Ralph L. Rusk

POETRY

2011  Head Off & Split - Nikky Finney

2010  Lighthead - Terrance Hayes

2009  Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy - Keith Waldrop
2008  Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems - Mark Doty
2007  Time and Materials - Robert Hass 
2006  Splay Anthem - Nathaniel Mackey  
2005  Migration: New and Selected Poems - W.S. Merwin
2004  Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 - Jean Valentine
2003  The Singing - C.K. Williams
2002  In the Next Galaxy - Ruth Stone
2001  Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry - Alan Dugan
2000  Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 - Lucille Clifton

1999  Vice: New and Selected Poems - Ai
1998  This Time: New and Selected Poems - Gerald Stern
1997  Effort at Speech: New & Selected Poems - William Meredith
1996  Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey - Hayden Carruth
1995  Passing Through: The Later Poems - Stanley Kunitz
1994  A Worshipful Company of Fletchers - James Tate
1993  Garbage - A. R. Ammons
1992  New & Selected Poems - Mary Oliver
1991  What Work Is - Philip Levine
1990      no awards

1989      no awards
1988      no awards
1987      no awards
1986      no awards
1985      no awards
1984      no awards
1983  Selected Poems - Galway Kinnell
         Country Music: Selected Early Poems - Charles Wright
1982  Life Supports: New and Collected Poems - William Bronk
1981  The Need to Hold Still - Lisel Mueller
1980  Ashes - Philip Levine

1979  Mirabell: Books of Number - James Merrill
1978  The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov - Howard Nemerov
1977  Collected Poems, 1930-1976 - Richard Eberhart
1976  Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror - John Ashbery
1975  Presentation Piece - Marilyn Hacker
1974  Diving into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-72 - Adrienne Rich
         The Fall of America: Poems of These States - Allen Ginsberg
1973  Collected Poems: 1951-1971 - A.R. Ammons
1972  To See, To Take - Mona Van Duyn
1970  The Complete Poems - Elizabeth Bishop

1969  His Toy, His Dream - His Rest, John Berryman
1968  The Light Around the Body - Robert Bly
1967  Nights and Days - James Merrill
1966  Buckdancer's Choice: Poems - James Dickey
1965  The Far Field - Theodore Roethke
1964  Selected Poems - John Crowe Ransom
1963  Traveling Through the Dark - William Stafford
1962  Poems - Alan Dugan
1961  The Woman at the Washington Zoo - Randall Jarrell
1960  Life Studies - Robert Lowell

1959  Words for the Wind - Theodore Roethke
1958  Promises: Poems, 1954-1956 - Robert Penn Warren
1957  Things of the World - Richard Wilbur
1956  The Shield of Achilles - W.H. Auden
1955  The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens - Wallace Stevens
1954  Collected Poems - Conrad Aiken
1953  Collected Poems, 1917-1952 - Archibald MacLeish
1952  Collected Poems - Marianne Moore
1951  The Auroras of Autumn - Wallace Stevens
1950  Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems - William Carlos Williams

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

2011  Inside Out and Back Again - Thanhha Lai

2010  Mockingbird - Kathryn Erskine

2009  Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice - Phillip Hoose
2008  What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blundell
2007  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
2006  The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing - M.T. Anderson
2005  The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy - Jeanne Birdsall
2004  The Godless - Pete Hautman
2003  The Canning Season - Polly Horvath
2002  The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer 
2001  True Believer - Virginia Euwer Wolff
2000  Homeless Bird - Gloria Whelan

1999  When Zachary Beaver Came to Town - Kimberly Willis Holt
1998  Holes - Louis Sachar
1997  Dancing on the Edge - Han Nolan
1996  Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida - Victor Martinez

The National Book Foundation created a new program, “5 Under 35,” to highlight the work of the next generation of gifted young fiction writers. Five National Book Awards fiction finalists from previous years were asked to select one fiction writer under the age of 35 whose work they find particularly promising and exciting.

2011
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid - Shani Boianjiu ... selected by Nicole Krauss
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self - Danielle Evans ... selected by Robert Stone
The Walking People - Mary Beth Keane ... selected by Julia Glass
Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories - Melinda Moustakis ... selected by Julia Glass
Where Things Come Back - John Corey Whaley ... selected by Oscar Hijuelos

2010
The Sweet Relief of Missing Children - Sarah Braunstein ... selected by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
The Orange Eats Creeps - Grace Krilanovich ... selected by Scott Spencer
The Tiger's Wife - Téa Obreht ... selected by Colum McCann
How to Escape from a Leper Colony - Tiphanie Yanique ... selected by Jayne Anne Phillips
Once the Shore - Paul Yoon ... selected by Kate Walbert

2009
Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey  ...  selected by Rachel Kushner
All the Living by C. E. Morgan  ...  selected by Christine Schutt
Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle  ...  selected by Salvatore Scibona
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell  ...  selected by Dan Chaon
The New Valley by Josh Weil  ...  selected by Lily Tuck

2008
The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck  ...  selected by Joshua Ferris
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen  ...  selected by Jonathan Franzen
One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov  ...  selected by Francine Prose
The Boat by Nam Le  ...  selected by Mary Gaitskill
Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel   ...  selected by Jim Shepard

2007
Garner by Kirstin Allio  ...  selected by Dana Spiotta
The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu  ...  selected by Jess Walter
Get Down: Stories by Asali Solomon  ...  selected by Jennifer Egan
Petropolis by Anya Ulinich  ...  selected by Ken Kalfus
Third Class Superhero by Charles Yu  ...  selected by Richard Powers

2006
O My Darling by Amity Gaige  ...  selected by Christopher Sorrentino
The Seas by Samantha Hunt  ...  selected by René Steinke
Corpus Christi: Stories by Bret Anthony Johnston  ...  selected by Adam Haslett
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap  ...  selected by Joan Silber
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer  ...  selected by Edward P. Jones