Editor’s note: This article was updated on September 16, 2026, after the National Book Foundation announced the Longlists for Poetry, Translated Literature and Young People’s Literature. Fiction and Nonfiction will be added when they are revealed.
The 2026 National Book Awards Longlists are officially underway, with 30 of this year’s 50 nominated books now revealed.
The National Book Foundation has announced the 10 Longlisted books in Poetry, Translated Literature and Young People’s Literature. The Fiction and Nonfiction lists have not yet been released as of September 16.
Once all five categories are complete, the Longlists will feature 50 books: 10 apiece in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature and Young People’s Literature.
The announcements begin the final stretch of the 77th National Book Awards. The field will be reduced to five Finalists in each category on October 6 before one Winner per category is announced at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18.
Have the 2026 National Book Awards Longlists been announced?
The 2026 National Book Awards Longlists have been partially announced.
As of September 16, the National Book Foundation has revealed the nominees for Poetry, Translated Literature and Young People’s Literature. That accounts for 30 of the 50 Longlisted books.
The Fiction and Nonfiction Longlists are still forthcoming. This article will be updated when the final 20 titles are announced.
2026 National Book Award for Fiction Longlist
Status: Not yet announced as of September 16.
Ten novels or story collections will be added here following the official announcement.
The 2026 Fiction judges are Matt Bell, Caro De Robertis, Danielle King, Akhil Sharma and Diane Wilson. De Robertis is serving as chair of the panel.
2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction Longlist
Status: Not yet announced as of September 16.
Ten nonfiction books will be added here following the official announcement.
The Nonfiction judging panel consists of Eve L. Ewing, Audrey I-Wei Huang, Jonathan C. Slaght, Robert Warrior and Lidia Yuknavitch, with Warrior serving as chair.
2026 National Book Award for Poetry Longlist
Status: Announced.
The 2026 National Book Award for Poetry Longlist features four writers who have previously been recognized by the National Book Awards: Victoria Chang, Brenda Hillman, Fady Joudah and Layli Long Soldier.
Four of the nominated books were released by independent publishers, while three came from university presses.
The 10 Longlisted poetry books are:
- Victoria Chang, Tree of Knowledge
- Carolina Ebeid, Hide
- Brenda Hillman, Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation
- Richie Hofmann, The Bronze Arms
- Fady Joudah, Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza
- Layli Long Soldier, We
- Jonah Mixon-Webster, Promise/Threat
- Jake Rose, JOAN
- Jake Skeets, Horses
- Susan Stewart, Bramble
This is a particularly wide-ranging list. The nominated collections explore Indigenous identity, migration, environmental change, queer experience, Palestinian life, war, memory and the relationship between language and belonging.
Publishers submitted 285 books for consideration in the Poetry category.
The Poetry judges are Rob Arnold, Aracelis Girmay, Jon Pineda, Roger Reeves and Rosanna Warren. Girmay chairs the panel.
2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature Longlist
Status: Announced.
The 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature Longlist features nine novels and one work of nonfiction.
The nominated books were originally published in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish. Indonesian appears as an original language in the category for the first time.
The 10 Longlisted books are:
- Egana Djabbarova, My Dreadful Body, translated from Russian by Lisa C. Hayden
- Álvaro Enrigue, Now I Surrender, translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
- Karim Kattan, Eden at Dawn, translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
- Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night, translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken
- Ping Lu, To the East of the East, translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang
- Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa, translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery
- Intan Paramaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells, translated from Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
- Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men, translated from French by Lara Vergnaud
- Maria Stepanova, The Disappearing Act, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale
- Samar Yazbek, Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza, translated from Arabic by Leri Price
Several of the recognized writers and translators have appeared on previous National Book Award lists.
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and Lara Vergnaud were Longlisted in 2023 for The Most Secret Memory of Men. Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale were Longlisted in 2021 for In Memory of Memory. Samar Yazbek and Leri Price were Finalists in both 2021 and 2024.
The list also includes Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of the most internationally recognizable writers nominated in any category announced so far.
Thematically, the books examine migration, sexuality, war, occupation, artistic ambition, family history and the struggle to construct an identity across languages and cultures. Samar Yazbek’s nonfiction work collects testimony from Palestinians receiving medical treatment in Doha, while Karim Kattan’s Eden at Dawn follows a queer Palestinian romance amid war and occupation.
Publishers submitted 159 books for the 2026 Translated Literature Award.
The judging panel consists of Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Javier García del Moral, John Keene, Christopher Merrill and Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi. Merrill is the chair.
Translated Literature is especially worth watching because the Award recognizes both the author and translator. The category can also introduce American readers to exceptional books that may not have received the same attention as the year’s biggest English-language releases.
2026 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Longlist
Status: Announced.
The 2026 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Longlist includes fiction, nonfiction, novels in verse and an illustrated picture-book biography.
The 10 Longlisted books are:
- Delali Adjoa, The Free Verse Society
- Elana K. Arnold, Holloway
- T. A. Chan, The Celestial Seas
- Tae Keller, When Tomorrow Burns
- Keala Kendall, That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic
- David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels, The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America
- Chanel Miller, The Moon Without Stars
- Eric Darnell Pritchard and Shannon Wright, Clothes to Make You Smile: Patrick Kelly Designs His Dreams
- Julian Randall, Shook
- Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, Life on the Moon
Elana K. Arnold and David Levithan are the two previous National Book Award honorees on the list. Arnold was a 2017 Finalist for What Girls Are Made Of, while Levithan was Longlisted in 2013 for Two Boys Kissing.
The selections cover an unusually broad range of subjects and genres. Holloway combines historical fiction with a story about grief and generational trauma, while The Fight of Our Lives examines the history of the AIDS crisis and youth activism in the United States.
Keala Kendall’s That Which Feeds Us blends Indigenous Hawaiian folklore with Gothic horror. The Celestial Seas and Life on the Moon take young readers into space, while When Tomorrow Burns explores friendship and hope against a backdrop of devastating wildfires.
The list also includes Clothes to Make You Smile, a picture-book biography of Black fashion designer Patrick Kelly, and two novels in verse: The Free Verse Society and Shook.
Publishers submitted 290 books for consideration in the Young People’s Literature category.
The judges are Edith Campbell, Brandy Colbert, Tricia Ebarvia, Jarrett J. Krosoczka and Anne Ursu. Colbert serves as chair.
What stands out about the 2026 National Book Awards Longlists so far?
Although Fiction and Nonfiction are still to come, several patterns have already emerged.
War, displacement, colonialism and cultural survival appear throughout the Poetry and Translated Literature lists. The nominated books frequently examine how political violence affects individual bodies, families and communities.
The Young People’s Literature selections are also notable for their range. The judges recognized historical fiction, science fiction, horror, nonfiction, poetry and picture-book biography instead of limiting the category to conventional young-adult novels.
Independent and university presses are well represented in Poetry and Translated Literature. Publishers including Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions, Restless Books, New Vessel Press, Bellevue Literary Press and the University of Chicago Press appear alongside major publishing houses.
The lists also balance established writers with less familiar names. Knausgaard, Chang, Hillman, Joudah and Long Soldier bring significant literary recognition, but the Awards may provide a much larger audience for several debut writers and works from smaller publishers.
What happens after the National Book Award Longlists?
The Longlists are only the first public stage of the National Book Awards.
On October 6, the 10 books in each category will be narrowed to five Finalists. That will leave 25 Finalists across the five competitive categories.
The five Winners will then be announced on November 18 at the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner.
Important 2026 National Book Awards dates
- September 15–17: Longlists announced
- October 6: Finalists announced
- November 17: Teens Read event and Finalist Reading
- November 18: Winners announced
The ceremony is scheduled to be livestreamed, allowing readers outside New York to watch the winners revealed in real time.
How are books selected for the National Book Awards?
The National Book Foundation appointed 25 judges for the 2026 Awards, five for each category. Those panels review eligible submissions and independently select their category’s 10-book Longlist, five Finalists and eventual Winner.
Eligible books must be published by a United States publisher during the current eligibility period, which runs from December 1, 2025, through November 30, 2026. The Foundation’s rules also contain category-specific requirements for authors, publishers and translated works.
The judges make their decisions independently of the National Book Foundation’s staff and board. Each panel develops its own criteria while following the Award’s eligibility rules.
The scale of the process makes the Longlists useful even before the Winners are chosen. Fifty books receive national attention, including work from smaller publishers and writers who may be unfamiliar to many readers.
Why the 2026 Longlists matter for readers
Awards cannot determine whether every reader will love a book, but the National Book Awards Longlists can serve as one of the year’s most interesting reading maps.
The five lists bring together literary fiction, reported nonfiction, memoir, history, poetry, books in translation and literature for younger readers. For anyone looking beyond bestseller lists, the nominees offer a chance to discover books selected for the quality and ambition of their writing.
The Longlists can also change the conversation around books that have received limited attention. A nomination often sends readers back to titles released earlier in the eligibility period while putting forthcoming fall books on their radar.
So far, the 2026 lists offer an intriguing mixture of familiar literary names, emerging writers and books from independent presses. The next major question is which novels and nonfiction books will join them when the final two categories are announced.
When will the 2026 National Book Award winners be announced?
The five Winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 18, 2026, during the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner.
Before that, the National Book Foundation will announce the 25 Finalists on October 6. This page will be updated with the Fiction and Nonfiction Longlists when they are released and, later, with a clear marker beside every title that advances to the Finalist round.
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