National Book Foundation Announces the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction

Mar. 15, 2025

Three of the titles longlisted for the National Book Award nonfiction prize.

The 2024 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction is here!

On Thursday, Sept. 12, the theNational Book Foundationrevealed its 10 nominees for the coveted award. The announcement of the titles comes just weeks before its five finalists will be announced on Oct. 1, ahead of the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner where winners will be announced on Nov. 20.

This year’s nominees include Hanif Abdurraqib’sThere’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, Rebecca Boyle’sOur Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are, Jason De León’sSoldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, Eliza Griswold’sCircle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Churchand Kate Manne’sUnshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia.

The additional five contenders are Salman Rushdie’sKnife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Ernest Scheyder’sThe War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives, Richard Slotkin’sA Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America, Deborah Jackson Taffa’sWhiskey Tenderand Vanessa Angélica Villarreal’sMagical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders.

Per a release from the National Book Foundation, this year’s Longlist includes MacArthur, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts and Knight Science Journalism Program Fellows — as well as authors who’ve previously received the Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Whiting Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

“The 2024 Nonfiction Longlist includes emerging and established writers, and features works of memoir, science writing, investigative works and much more,” the release says.

“The majority of the Longlisted authors are newcomers to the National Book Awards, with two exceptions — Hanif Abdurraqib was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2021 and a Longlister in 2019, and Richard Slotkin was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1993 and a Finalist for the National Book Award for History in 1974.”

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The latest announcement from the National Book Foundation follows a series of announcements over recent weeks — from the revelation of the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature to Pulitzer Prize winnerBarbara Kingsolverbeing announced as the recipient of itslifetime achievement award, the its 2024 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner and to register to watch the broadcast, visit theNational Book Foundation.

source: people.com