The other nominees are “We Are Green and Trembling,” by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers; Anjet Daanje’s “The Remembered Soldier,” translated from the Dutch by David McKay; and “We Computers: A Ghazal Novel,” by Hamid Ismailov, translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega. That book is set in the 1980s, when a French poet and psychologist wonders if a computer will be capable of creating and translating literature.
Three novels-in-verse are finalists in young people’s literature: Ibi Zoboi’s “(S)Kin,” about a shape-shifting witch; Amber McBride’s “The Leaving Room,” which takes place over four minutes in a room between life and death; and Hannah V. Sawyerr’s “Truth Is,” which follows a 17-year-old poet after an abortion.
The other finalists are Kyle Lukoff’s “A World Worth Saving,” which mixes Jewish mythology and adventure in a story about a trans teenager’s efforts to dismantle a conversion therapy program; and Daniel Nayeri’s “The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story.”
Two lifetime achievement awards will be presented at the prize ceremony. The author and professor George Saunders will receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and Roxane Gay, an author and cultural critic, will be presented with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
Here is a complete list of the National Book Award finalists:
Fiction
Rabih Alameddine, “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)”
Megha Majumdar, “A Guardian and a Thief”
Karen Russell, “The Antidote”
Ethan Rutherford, “North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther”
Bryan Washington, “Palaver”
Nonfiction
Omar El Akkad, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”
Julia Ioffe, “Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, From Revolution to Autocracy”
Yiyun Li, “Things in Nature Merely Grow”
Claudia Rowe, “Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care”
Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”
Poetry
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”
Cathy Linh Che, “Becoming Ghost”
Tiana Clark, “Scorched Earth”
Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”
Patricia Smith, “The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems”
Translated Literature
Solvej Balle, “On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)”
Translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, “We Are Green and Trembling”
Translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers
Anjet Daanje, “The Remembered Soldier”
Translated from the Dutch by David McKay
Hamid Ismailov, “We Computers: A Ghazal Novel”
Translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega
Neige Sinno, “Sad Tiger”
Translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer
Young People’s Literature
Kyle Lukoff, “A World Worth Saving”
Amber McBride, “The Leaving Room”
Daniel Nayeri, “The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story”
Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is”
Ibi Zoboi, “(S)Kin”