2013 National Book Awards Longlists Announced

From Monday, September 16, through Thursday, September 19, the National Book Foundation rolled out the longlists for this year’s National Book Awards for Young People’s Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction. The inaugural longlists feature 10 titles in each category chosen by a panel of five judges, who will narrow down the lists to five finalists, to be announced on October 15.

The winners will be announced at the annual National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on November 20, 2013.

Titles and authors on the inaugural longlist for the National Book Award in Fiction are:

• Tom Drury, Pacific (Grove Press)
• Elizabeth Graver, The End of the Point (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers)
• Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)
• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
• Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Hogarth/Random House)
• James McBride, The Good Lord Bird (Riverhead Books/Penguin Group USA)
• Alice McDermott, Someone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge (The Penguin Press/Penguin Group USA)
• George Saunders, Tenth of December (Random House)
• Joan Silber, Fools (W.W. Norton & Company)

This year’s judges for the Fiction award are Charles Baxter, Gish Jen, Charles McGrath, Rick Simonson, and René Steinke.

The 2013 longlist for Nonfiction features:

• T.D. Allman, Finding Florida: The True Story of the Sunshine State (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Gretel Ehrlich, Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami (Pantheon Books/Random House)
• Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
• Wendy Lower, Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865   (W.W. Norton & Company)
• George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington (Gotham Books/Penguin Group USA)
• Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)

The judges for the Nonfiction prize are Jabari Asim, André Bernard, M.G. Lord, Lauren Redniss, and Eric Sundquist.

The 2013 longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry features:

• Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Roger Bonair-Agard, Bury My Clothes (Haymarket Books)
• Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Andrei Codrescu, So Recently Rent a World, New and Selected Poems: 1968-2012 (Coffee House Press)
• Brenda Hillman, Seasonal Works With Letters on Fire (Wesleyan University Press)
• Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke (Penguin Poets/Penguin Group USA)
• Diane Raptosh, American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press)
• Matt Rasmussen, Black Aperture (Louisiana State University Press)
• Martha Ronk, Transfer of Qualities (Omnidawn Publishing)
• Mary Szybist, Incarnadine: Poems (Graywolf Press)

The judges for the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry are Nikky Finney, Ada Limón, D.A. Powell, Jahan Ramazani, Craig Morgan Teicher.

The National Book Foundation’s longlist for the 2013 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature features:

• Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
• Kate DiCamillo, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (Candlewick Press)
• Lisa Graff,  A Tangle of Knots (Philomel/Penguin Group USA)
• Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
• Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
• David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
• Tom McNeal, Far Far Away (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
• Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Group USA)
• Anne Ursu, The Real Boy (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins Publishers)
• Gene Luen Yang, Boxers and Saints (First Second/Macmillan)

The judges for the 2013 Young People’s Literature award are Deb Caletti, Cecil Castellucci, Peter Glassman, E. Lockhart, and Lisa Von Drasek.