National Book Award for Fiction

2025

• North Sun by Ethan Rutherford — finalist
• The Pelican Child by Joy Williams — longlist
• The Antidote by Karen Russell — finalist
• The True True Story of Raja the Gullible by Rabih Alameddine
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy — longlist
• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar — finalist
• Palaver by Bryan Washington — finalist
• The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri — longlist
• Only Son by Kevin Moffett — longlist

2024

• My Friends by Hisham Matar — finalist
• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar — finalist
• Yr Dead by Sam Sax — longlist
• James by Percival Everett
• All Fours by Miranda July — finalist
• The Most by Jessica Anthony — longlist
• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte — longlist
• Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda — finalist
• Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner — longlist
• Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio — longlist

2023

• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips — longlist
• The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvainen — finalist
• This Other Eden by Paul Harding — finalist
• Holler, Child by LaToya Watkins — longlist
• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah — finalist
• Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal — finalist
• Blackouts by Justin Torres
• Loot by Tania James — longlist
• A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power — longlist
• Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan — longlist

2022

• The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones — finalist
• All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews — finalist
• When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar — longlist
• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
• The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela — finalist
• Nobody Gets Out Alive by Leigh Newman — longlist
• If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery — longlist
• Shutter by Ramona Emerson — longlist
• The Haunting of Hajji Hotak by Jamil Jan Kochai — finalist
• Maria, Maria & Other Stories by Marytza K. Rubio — longlist

2021

• Bewilderment by Richard Powers — longlist
• The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. — finalist
• Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
• Abundance by Jakob Guanzon — longlist
• Matrix by Lauren Groff — finalist
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers — longlist
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr — finalist
• Intimacies by Katie Kitamura — longlist
• Zorrie by Laird Hunt — finalist
• The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken — longlist

2020

• The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher Beha — longlist
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart — finalist
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw — finalist
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett — longlist
• Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam — finalist
• A Burning by Megha Majumdar — longlist
• If I Had Two Wings by Randall Kenan — longlist
• The Great Offshore Grounds by Vanessa Veselka — longlist
• A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet — finalist

2019

• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — longlist
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead — longlist
• Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner — longlist
• Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
• Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips — finalist
• Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine — finalist
• Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James — finalist
• The Other Americans by Laila Lalami — finalist
• The Need by Helen Phillips — longlist
• Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons — longlist

2018

• Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson — finalist
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones — longlist
• The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai — finalist
• There There by Tommy Orange — longlist
• Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires — longlist
• Florida by Lauren Groff — finalist
• The Boatbuilder by Daniel Gumbiner — longlist
• A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley — finalist
• Gun Love by Jennifer Clement — longlist

2017

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee — finalist
• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado — finalist
• The Leavers by Lisa Ko — finalist
• A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton — longlist
• Barren Island by Carol Zoref — longlist
• The King Is Always Above the People by Daniel Alarcon — longlist
• Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman — finalist
• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan — longlist
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig — longlist

2016

• Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet — longlist
• News of the World by Paulette Jiles — finalist
• Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett — longlist
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan — finalist
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson — finalist
• The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder — finalist
• What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell — longlist
• The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie — longlist
• Miss Jane by Brad Watson — longlist

2015

• Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson