2013 National Book Award Winners

2013 National Book Award Winners

 

Fiction

WINNER:

James McBride, The Good Lord Bird (Riverhead Books/Penguin Group USA)
> Interview
> Video of acceptance speech

Finalists:

Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge (The Penguin Press/Penguin Group USA)
- Video from Finalists Reading >
George Saunders, Tenth of December (Random House)
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- Video from Finalists Reading >

Longlist:

- Tom Drury, Pacific (Grove Press)
- Elizabeth Graver, The End of the Point (Harper/HarperCollinsPublishers)
- Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Hogarth/Random House)
- Alice McDermott, Someone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Joan Silber, Fools (W.W. Norton & Company)

JUDGES:

Charles Baxter, Gish Jen, Charles McGrath, Rick Simonson, René Steinke

 Nonfiction Books 

WINNER:

George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
> Interview
> Video of acceptance speech

Finalists:

Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
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- Video from Finalists Reading >
Wendy Lower, Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (W.W. Norton & Company)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief
(Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >

longlist:

- 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 Book/Random House)
- Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA (W.W. Norton & Company)
- James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865
(W.W. Norton & Company)
- Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington (Gotham Books)

judges:

Jabari Asim, André Bernard, M.G. Lord, Lauren Redniss, Eric Sundquist

Poetry Books

WINNER:

Mary Szybist, Incarnadine (Graywolf Press)
> Interview
> Video of acceptance speech

Finalists:

Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion (Alfred A. Knopf)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke (Penguin Poets/Penguin Group USA)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Matt Rasmussen, Black Aperture (Louisiana State University Press)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >

longlist:

- Roger Bonair-Agard, Bury My Clothes (Haymarket Books)
- 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)
- Diane Raptosh, American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press)
- Martha Ronk, Transfer of Qualities (Omnidawn Publishing)

judges:

Nikky Finney, Ada Limón, D.A. Powell, Jahan Ramazani, Craig Morgan Teicher

Young People’s Literature

WINNER:

Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
> Interview
> Video of acceptance speech

Finalists:

Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Tom McNeal, Far Far Away (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Group USA)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >
Gene Luen Yang, Boxers & Saints (First Second/Macmillan)
- Interview >
- Video from Finalists Reading >

longlist:

- Kate DiCamillo, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (Candlewick Press)
- Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots (Philomel, A division of Penguin Group USA)
- Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
- David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing (Knopf Books for Young Readers/Random House)
- Anne Ursu, The Real Boy (Walden Pond Press/an Imprint HarperCollinsPublishers)

judges:

Deb Caletti, Cecil Castellucci, Peter Glassman, E. Lockhart, Lisa Von Drasek