NEW YORK — This year’s nominees for the National Book Critics Circle prizes feature notable titles such as Percival Everett’s “James,” a posthumous memoir by opposition figure Alexei Navalny, and Adam Higginbotham’s highly praised account of the Challenger disaster.
In addition to announcing finalists across eight different categories, the critics circle also recognized Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated author of “The House On Mango Street,” with a lifetime achievement award. Lauren Michele Jackson, a contributor for New York, received an excellence in reviewing honor, while Lori Lynn Turner was acknowledged with a public service award. The Toni Morrison Achievement Award went to Third World Press, a prominent Black-owned publishing house, honoring the legacy of the late Nobel Prize-winning author.
The winners will be revealed at a ceremony scheduled for March 20 in Manhattan, where Maxine Hong Kingston, a previous NBCC recipient, will deliver a keynote speech in celebration of the critics circle’s 50th anniversary.
Among the nominees in fiction, aside from “James” and Everett’s reinterpretation of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” are Marie-Helene Bertino’s “Beautyland,” Joseph O’Neill’s “Godwin,” Hisham Matar’s “My Friends,” and Nora Lange’s “Us Fools.”
Navalny’s “Patriot” competes in the autobiography category against works such as Manjula Martin’s “The Last Fire Season,” Wei Tchou’s “Little Seed,” Zito Madu’s “The Minotaur at Calle Lanza,” and Erika Morillo’s “Mother Archive.”
Higginbotham’s “Challenger” is nominated for nonfiction, facing stiff competition from Steve Coll’s “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq,” Edwidge Danticat’s “We’re Alone,” Tricia Romano’s “The Freaks Came Out To Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture,” and Gretchen Sisson’s “Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood.”
In the poetry category, nominees include Anne Carson’s “Wrong Norma,” Carl Phillips’ “Scattered Snows,” Jennifer Chang’s “An Authentic Life,” Oliver Baez Bendorf’s “Consider the Rooster,” and Dawn Lundy’s “Instructions for the Lovers.” The biography category features Jane Kamesnky’s “Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution,” Cynthia Carr’s “Candy Darling,” Jean Strouse’s exploration of artist John Singer Sargent in “Family Romance,” Tiya Miles’ biography of Harriet Tubman titled “Night Flyer,” and Amy Reading’s “The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker.”
Vinson Cunningham’s “Great Expectations,” a political novel partly inspired by Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, is nominated for the John Leonard Prize for best first book, alongside other contenders such as Rebecca Nagle’s “By the Fire We Carry,” Tessa Hulls’ graphic memoir “Feeding Ghosts,” Carrie Courogen’s biography of Elaine May titled “Miss May Does Not Exist,” and John Ganz’s “When the Clock Broke.”
Named after a co-founder of the NBCC and a renowned critic for The New York Times, Leonard passed away in 2008, leaving a noteworthy legacy of supporting emerging voices in literature.
