Sandra Cisneros, Third World Press to receive lifetime achievement awards, distinguished guest Maxine Hong Kingston to speak
New York, NY (January 23, 2024)—Today the National Book Critics Circle announced 30 finalists in six categories for the best books of publishing year 2024. Other announcements included two lifetime achievement awards, the NBCC Service Award, the winner and finalists for the Nona Balakian Citation, finalists for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, and the shortlist for the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the NBCC Awards and distinguished guest Maxine Hong Kingston, who won the 1976 NBCC Nonfiction Award for The Woman Warrior, will speak in honor of the semicentennial.
“The NBCC remains, as president Ivan Sandrof said at our first ceremony, ‘fiercely independent,’ the only literary prize selected by the critics themselves,” stated NBCC President Heather Scott Partington. “This year’s finalist list represents another collection of innovative and bold writing. These essential works break down barriers and expectations. As censorship and book bans continue, these new classics communicate indispensable truths and beg to be read. These writers and translators stand shoulder to shoulder with NBCC honorees of the past 50 years. By celebrating their work, we seek to honor the rights of all people to write and to read.”
The finalists represent a wide-ranging array of authors and presses. As autobiography committee chair May-lee Chai noted, these “are the best of the best, five works that were unforgettable and aesthetically daring.” The poetry finalists, committee chair David Woo declared, “create visions of our times that are provocative, graceful, and indelible.” The biography finalists, as chair Elizabeth Taylor stated, “reflect deep research but also display a felicity of expression,” while “this year’s criticism finalists articulate the fierce tension between historical forces and individual agency,” criticism chair J. Howard Rosier asserted.
In addition to the category awards, the NBCC announced the finalists for the John Leonard Prize and the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. “This year’s shortlist nominees are expansive in scope, language, genre and country of origin, yet intimate and striking in their depictions of the human condition,” Mandana Chaffa, Vice President of the Barrios Prize noted. Together, the awards finalists present a particularly notable array of styles and perspectives, as well as publishers: out of the 42 category and special awards, 31 publishers are represented.
The recipient of the 2024 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing is Lauren Michele Jackson, a contributing writer for The New Yorker and author of the White Negros. Jackson’s winning entry included two reviews—a “fresh and elegant exploration” of James and a “rollicking and whip-smart look” at Tits Up— that “offer a dazzling demonstration of her depth and range,” stated Balakian committee chair Colette Bancroft. “Her gorgeously written reviews are thoughtful, informed and a joy to read.” The NBCC Service Award this year will honor Lori Lynn Turner, Associate Director of The New School Creative Writing Program, who has worked behind the scenes with great dedication to support the NBCC.
The recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Sandra Cisneros. “As one of the seminal figures in the Chicano literary movement, Cisneros has an unmatched record as a change agent and community builder,” Achievement Awards committee chair Jacob M. Appel declared. “She writes specifically of the Mexican-American experience, but with a deep emotional understanding and resonance that universalizes the challenges of immigration, exile, and dislocation.”
The recipient of the Toni Morrison Achievement Award is Third World Press, one of the most influential Black-owned literary enterprises in the United States. “Under the helm of Haki R. Madhubuti, the Chicago-based publisher has championed generations of Black authors and is largely responsible for keeping the works of celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks in print,” Appel stated. “Both Sandra Cisneros and Third World Press reflect the very best of American book culture and serve as testaments to tenacity, authenticity and integrity in an increasingly commercialized world.”
The National Book Critics Circle Awards, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin Hotel and
considered among the most prestigious in American letters, are the sole prizes bestowed by a jury of working critics and book review editors. The awards for publishing year 2024 will be presented on March 20, 2025 at the New School in New York City, in a ceremony that will be free and open to the public.
National Book Critics Circle Finalists Publishing Year 2024
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History by Manjula Martin (Pantheon)
Little Seed by Wei Tchou (Deep Vellum)
The Minotaur at Calle Lanza by Zito Madu (Belt)
Mother Archive: A Dominican Family Memoir by Erika Morillo (University of Iowa)
Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, translated from the Russian by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel (Knopf)
BIOGRAPHY
Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution: A History from Below by Jane Kamensky (W. W. Norton)
Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers by Jean Strouse (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles (Penguin Press)
The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker by Amy Reading (Mariner)
CRITICISM
Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us by Legacy Russell (Verso)
The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War by Jesse McCarthy (University of Chicago)
Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today by Claire Bishop (Verso)
Intervals by Marianne Brooker (Fitzcarraldo)
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)
FICTION
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Godwin by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon)
James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House)
Us Fools by Nora Lange (Two Dollar Radio)
NONFICTION
The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll (Penguin Press)
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (Avid Reader)
The Freaks Came Out To Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture by Tricia Romano (PublicAffairs)
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson (St. Martin’s)
We’re Alone by Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf)
POETRY
An Authentic Life by Jennifer Chang (Copper Canyon)
Consider the Rooster by Oliver Baez Bendorf (Nightboat)
Instructions for the Lovers by Dawn Lundy Martin (Nightboat)
Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Wrong Norma by Anne Carson (New Directions)
GREGG BARRIOS BOOK IN TRANSLATION PRIZE
The Children of the Ghetto: Star of the Sea by Elias Khoury, translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies (Archipelago), Fiction
Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (New Directions), Fiction
A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Pedro Lemebel, translated from the Spanish by Gwendolyn Harper (Penguin Classics), Nonfiction
Melvill by Rodrigo Fresán, translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter), Fiction
O by Judith Kiros, translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson (World Poetry), Poetry
Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger (Transit), Nonfiction
JOHN LEONARD PRIZE
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight For Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle (Harper)
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth)
Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius by Carrie Courogen (St. Martin’s)
Ward Toward by Cindy Juyoung Ok (Yale University)
When The Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s by John Ganz (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
NBCC SERVICE AWARD
Lori Lynn Turner
NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING
Lauren Michele Jackson
Finalists
Joanna Biggs
Sarah Chihaya
Rhoda Feng
Jeremy Lybarger
TONI MORRISON ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Third World Press
IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Sandra Cisneros
DISTINGUISHED GUEST SPEAKING IN HONOR OF THE NBCC’S 50th ANNIVERSARY
Maxine Hong Kingston
ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE
The National Book Critics Circle was founded in 1974 at New York’s legendary Algonquin Hotel by a group of the most influential critics of the day, and awarded its first set of honors the following year. Comprising more than 800 working critics and book review editors throughout the country, the NBCC annually bestows its awards in six categories, honoring the best books published in the past year in the United States. It is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the publishing industry. The finalists for the NBCC awards are nominated, evaluated, and selected by the 24-member board of directors, which consists of critics and editors from some of the country’s leading print and online publications, as well as critics whose works appear in these publications. For more information about the history and activities of the National Book Critics Circle and to learn how to become a supporter, visit www.bookcritics.org.