National Book Award announces finalists, including Ta-Nehisi Coates

Oct. 14, 2015 6:30 AM PT

In the race for the National Book Award, the field has just been narrowed.

The National Book Foundation, which presents the National Book Award, announced the five finalists in each of four categories Wednesday morning in a scheduled appearance on NPR. The 10-book longlists in each category were announced last month.

The list is dominated by writers who are new to the National Book Awards. Among them is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has made best-seller lists with his book about race in America, “Between the World and Me,” is a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was recently awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.

The winners will be announced at a gala event in New York on Nov. 18.

Fiction:
Karen E. Bender, “Refund” (Soft Skull/Counterpoint Press)

Angela Flournoy, “The Turner House” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Lauren Groff, “Fates and Furies” (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House)

Adam Johnson, “Fortune Smiles” (Random House/Penguin Random House)

Hanya Yanagihara, “A Little Life” (Doubleday/Penguin Random House)

Nonfiction:
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Between the World and Me” (Spiegel and Grau/Penguin Random House)

Sally Mann, “Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs” (Little, Brown/Hachette Book Grou)

Sy Montgomery, “The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness” (Atria/Simon and Schuster)

Carla Power, “If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran” (Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan)

Tracy K. Smith, “Ordinary Light: A Memoir” (Alfred A. Knopf)

Poetry:
Ross Gay, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” (Pitt Poetry Series/University of Pittsburgh Press)

Terrance Hayes, “How to Be Drawn” (Penguin Books/Penguin Random House)

Robin Coste Lewis, “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (Alfred A. Knopf)

Ada Limón, “Bright Dead Things” (Milkweed Editions)

Patrick Phillips, “Elegy for a Broken Machine” (Alfred A. Knopf)

Young People’s Literature:
Ali Benjamin, “The Thing About Jellyfish” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers / Hachette Book Group)

Laura Ruby, “Bone Gap” (Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Steve Sheinkin, “Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War” (Roaring Brook Press / Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group)

Neal Shusterman, “Challenger Deep” (HarperTeen / HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Noelle Stevenson, “Nimona” (HarperTeen / HarperCollins Children’s Books)

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