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This week The New Yorker‘s rolling out longlists for the 2017 National Book Awards, and from the looks of things so far, the judges have their work cut out.
If you aren’t privy, the National Book Award is an American literary prize established in 1950 and presented annually by the National Book Foundation. This year’s finalists (five are chosen for each category) won’t be announced until October 4, but we’ve already got our money on who they’ll will be. Check out our picks (bolded) as lists continue to roll out below.
The big event goes down on November 15.
Poetry Longlist:
Frank Bidart, “Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016”
Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Macmillan
Chen Chen, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities”
BOA Editions
Leslie Harrison, “The Book of Endings”
University of Akron Press
Marie Howe, “Magdalene”
W. W. Norton & Company
Laura Kasischke, “Where Now: New and Selected Poems”
Copper Canyon Press
Layli Long Soldier, “Whereas”
Graywolf Press
Shane McCrae, “In the Language of My Captor”
Wesleyan University Press
Sherod Santos, “Square Inch Hours”
W. W. Norton & Company
Danez Smith, “Don’t Call Us Dead”
Graywolf Press
Mai Der Vang, “Afterland”
Graywolf Press
Young People’s Literature Longlist:
Elana K. Arnold, “What Girls Are Made Of”
Carolrhoda Lab / Lerner Publishing Group
Robin Benway, “Far from the Tree”
HarperTeen / HarperCollins
Samantha Mabry, “All the Wind in the World”
Algonquin Young Readers / Workman
Mitali Perkins, “You Bring the Distant Near”
Farrar, Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers / Macmillan
Jason Reynolds, “Long Way Down”
Atheneum / Caitlyn Dlouhy Books / Simon & Schuster
Erika L. Sánchez, “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House
Laurel Snyder, “Orphan Island”
Walden Pond Press / HarperCollins
Angie Thomas, “The Hate U Give”
Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins
Rita Williams-Garcia, “Clayton Byrd Goes Underground”
Amistad / HarperCollins
Ibi Zoboi, “American Street”
Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins
Nonfiction Longlist:
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge”
37 ink / Atria / Simon & Schuster
Frances FitzGerald, “The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America”
Simon & Schuster
James Forman, Jr., “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America”
Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Macmillan
Masha Gessen, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia”
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
David Grann, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.”
Doubleday / Penguin Random House
Naomi Klein, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need”
Haymarket Books
Nancy MacLean, “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America”
Viking / Penguin Random House
Richard Rothstein, “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America”
Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company
Timothy B. Tyson, “The Blood of Emmett Till”
Simon & Schuster
Kevin Young, “Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News”
Graywolf Press
Fiction Longlist:
Elliot Ackerman, “Dark at the Crossing”
Knopf / Penguin Random House
Daniel Alarcón, “The King Is Always Above the People: Stories”
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
Charmaine Craig, “Miss Burma”
Grove Press / Grove Atlantic
Jennifer Egan, “Manhattan Beach”
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Lisa Ko, “The Leavers”
Algonquin Books / Workman
Min Jin Lee, “Pachinko”
Grand Central Publishing / Hachette
Carmen Maria Machado, “Her Body and Other Parties: Stories”
Graywolf Press
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, “A Kind of Freedom”
Counterpoint Press
Jesmyn Ward, “Sing, Unburied, Sing”
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Carol Zoref, “Barren Island”
New Issues Poetry & Prose