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    2024 National Book Award Finalists Are Named

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    Percival Everett’s “James,” Salman Rushdie’s “Knife” and Diane Seuss’ “Modern Poetry” are among the honorees. Winners will be announced next month.This year’s finalists for the National Book Award include the novel “James,” by Percival Everett, a retelling of the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of an enslaved man, “Knife,” by Salman Rushdie, a memoir about the stabbing attempt on his life and his recovery, as well as books translated from Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and French.The National Book Foundation announced its 25 finalists on Tuesday for awards across five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature. The winners of the National Book Award, among the most prestigious literary prizes in the United States, will be announced in November.The fiction finalists also included Miranda July’s “All Fours,” about a 45-year-old artist whose road trip is cut short for a torrid affair. ’Pemi Aguda’s “Ghostroots,” a debut short story collection set in Lagos, Nigeria, was also on the list, as was “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, a book about addiction, grief and art, and “My Friends,” by Hisham Matar, which follows three Libyan exiles living in Britain.In the nonfiction category, Kate Manne’s “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia” explores weight stigma in different facets of society, including health care and employment. “Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church,” by Eliza Griswold, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, documents the rise and fall of a progressive Christian church. In “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” Jason De León embeds with human smugglers. Deborah Jackson Taffa examines her Native identity and her family’s history of displacement in “Whiskey Tender.”The poetry finalists include Diane Seuss, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the same category in 2022, and m.s. RedCherries, who was nominated for her debut poetry collection, “mother,” which is about an Indigenous child who is adopted by a non-Indigenous family. Anne Carson’s “Wrong Norma” is made up of prose poems and drawings about everyday life. Fady Joudah’s collection “[…]” is about Palestinians and the horrors of war, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s “Something About Living” is about the erasure of Palestinian history.In translated literature, Bothayna Al-Essa’s “The Book Censor’s Library” is set in a dystopian future. It was translated from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain. “Taiwan Travelogue,” by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, is about a Japanese writer and her relationship with her Taiwanese interpreter. “Where the Wind Calls Home,” by Samar Yazbek, translated from Arabic by Leri Price, is told through a 19-year-old soldier who is trying to survive the Syrian Civil War. “The Villain’s Dance,” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, was translated from French by Roland Glasser and “Ædnan” by Linnea Axelsson was translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Colson Whitehead Cancels His Commencement Speech at UMass Amherst

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      The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead said Thursday that he would not give the commencement address at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on May 18 as planned, citing the administration’s decision to call the police on campus protesters.“I was looking forward to speaking next week at UMass Amherst,” Mr. Whitehead wrote on the social network Bluesky. “But calling the cops on peaceful protesters is a shameful act. I have to withdraw as your commencement speaker. I give all my best wishes and congratulations to the class of ’24 and pray for the safety of the Palestinian people, the return of the hostages, and an end to this terrible war.”Michael Goldsmith, a representative for Mr. Whitehead, said the author had no further comment.The school said that the ceremony would proceed without a commencement speaker.“We respect Mr. Whitehead’s position and regret that he will not be addressing the Class of 2024,” Ed Blaguszewski, a spokesman for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a statement. The police arrested about 130 people at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Tuesday night after pro-Palestinian protesters refused to remove their encampments.Mr. Whitehead, whose novels include “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys,” is an extraordinarily decorated author. He has won the Pulitzer Prize twice, in 2020 and 2017, and was a finalist in 2002. He also won the National Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.He is also something of shape-shifter, moving easily between disparate genres. His book “Sag Harbor” was a coming-of-age novel, “Zone One” was a postapocalyptic zombie story, and “The Underground Railroad” followed a young enslaved woman who escapes from a Georgia plantation.C Pam Zhang, the author of “How Much of These Hills Is Gold,” and Safiya Umoja Noble, author of “Algorithms of Oppression” and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, have also withdrawn from commencement speeches this year, according to the website LitHub. Both were scheduled to speak at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. More

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      The National Book Awards Opens Up to Writers Who Are Not U.S. Citizens

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      The awards, which celebrate the best of American literature, are expanding the definition of who qualifies.Since their inauguration in 1950, the National Book Awards have set a lofty goal: to celebrate the best writing in America. And for most of the awards’ history, American literature was defined as books written by United States citizens.On Thursday, the National Book Foundation, which administers the prizes, announced that it was dropping the citizenship requirement, opening up the prize to immigrants and other longtime residents who have made their home in the United States.Ruth Dickey, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, said she hoped the change would help broaden the way the book world defines great American writing.“We are all deeply thinking about, how do we most expansively think about the literature of a place, and how writers contribute to that place?” she said. “How do we think about who are the writers who are part of a literary community, and who are we excluding when we draw certain boundaries?”In adopting the change, the National Book Awards are following other major literary prizes and organizations.Last fall, the board that administers the Pulitzer Prizes said that beginning with their 2025 prizes, permanent and longtime residents of the United States would be eligible for its awards for literature, drama and music. Previously, those categories were only open to American citizens, whereas the journalism awards were open to noncitizens whose work was published by U.S. media. The Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation have also expanded their prizes to include poetry by immigrants with temporary legal status.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More