Two RPCVs Finalists for 2019 NBCC Awards

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96)

This year, two RPCV writers are nominated for the 2019 book awards. They are George Packer (Togo 1982-83) and Peter Heller (China 1996-98)

Finalists for the 2019 NBCC Awards

The board of the National Book Critics Circle announces the finalists for its 2019 awards in six categories: Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry. The winners will be announced at a celebration on March 12 in New York.

In addition, today the recipients of three annual honors, the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award and the John Leonard Award for First Book are announced — they can be found below the finalists.

Autobiography

Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother’s Disappearance as a Child by Laura Cumming (Scribner)

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow (Little, Brown)

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman (W. W. Norton)

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (One World)

Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller (Viking)

Biography

Gods of the Upper Air: How A Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King (Doubleday)

The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth by Josh Levin (Little, Brown)

L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron” by Lucasta Miller (Knopf)

Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer (Knopf)

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell (Viking)

Criticism

Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib (University of Texas Press)

Essays One by Lydia Davis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman (W.W. Norton)

Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 by Peter Schjeldahl (Abrams)

Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin (Transit Books)

Fiction

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)

Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg (Scribner)

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Nonfiction

Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Kate Brown (W.W. Norton)

The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler (Penguin Press)

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)

Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives by Walt Odets (irFarrar, Straus and Giroux)

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury)

Poetry

The Tradition by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press)

Magical Negro by Morgan Parker (Tin House)

Dunce by Mary Ruefle (Wave Books)

Doomstead Days by Brian Teare (Nightboat Books)

The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing is an annual award recognizing outstanding work by a member of the NBCC. The citation is awarded in honor of Nona Balakian, a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, and comes with a cash prize of $1,000 funded by board member Gregg Barrios. The winner of the 2019 Balakian Prize is Katy Waldman.

The Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement

The Sandrof Award is given to a person or institution — a writer, publisher, critic, or editor, among others — who has, over time, made significant contributions to book culture. The recipient of the 2019 Sandrof Award is  Naomi Shihab Nye.

The John Leonard Award for Best First Book

The 2019 John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, which is selected by the organization’s membership, goes to The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom, published by Grove.

The awards

The NBCC awards will be presented March 12, 2020 at the New School in New York City. They are preceded by a finalists’ reading on March 11. Both events are free and open to the public.

Those who want to support the NBCC are invited to join winners, finalists and critics at our fundraising reception after the prizes on March 12. Tickets are available here.