US National Book Awards 2023 Longlist: Fiction

Three authors previously honored in the National Book Awards’ programs are among the 10 longlisted fiction titles for 2023.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Fiction Submissions Totaled 496 Titles

The United States’ National Book Foundation on Friday (September 15) released its 2023 10-title longlist in fiction.

Shortlists, called finalists in National Book Awards terminology, in all five categories are to be announced on October 3.

Winners are to be named at the 74th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on November 15.

The 2023 Fiction Longlist

Jurors in this year’s Fiction category for the National Book Awards are Steph Cha, Calvin Crosby, Silas House, Mat Johnson (chair), and Helena María Viramontes.

Publishers submitted 496 books in this category, meaning that Nonfiction, with 638 submissions, was by far the most heavily contested of the five categories.

Three authors on this longlist have received National Book Award attention in the past:

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was a 2018 honoree in the “5 Under 35” program for relatively young writers
Jayne Anne Phillips was shortlisted for the National Book Award for fiction in 2009
Justin Torres was a 2012 honoree in the National Book Awards’ “5 Under 35” program

These longlisted authors’ past accolades include attention from the Arts and Letters Award, the Booker Prize for Fiction in the United Kingdom, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Whiting Award. Among these ten longlisted writers are fellows of the Cullman Center, Guggenheim, MacDowell, National Endowment for the Arts, and Stegner programs.

Their writing has been featured in venues including A Public Space, Granta, Guernica, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Rumpus.

Author	Title	Publisher / Imprint
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	Chain-Gang All-Stars	Penguin Random House / Pantheon Books
Aaliyah Bilal	Temple Folk	Simon & Schuster
Eliot Duncan	Ponyboy	WW Norton
Paul Harding	This Other Eden	WW Norton
Tania James	Loot	Penguin Random House / Knopf
Jayne Anne Phillips	Night Watch	Penguin Random House / Knopf
Mona Susan Power	A Council of Dolls	HarperCollins / Mariner Books
Hanna Pylväinen	The End of Drum-Time	Macmillan / Henry Holt
Justin Torres	Blackouts	Macmillan / Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
LaToya Watkins	Holler, Child	Penguin Random House / Tiny Reparations

As always, the jury’s decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and board of directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential.

More on the 2023 National Book Awards:
US National Book Foundation: Poet Rita Dove Wins the 2023 Medal for Distinguished Contribution
US National Book Foundation: Bookseller Paul Yamazaki Wins the 2023 Literarian Medal

More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Awards is here and more on international book awards and prizes is here. More from us on fiction is here, and more on the United States’ market is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.