Actor and Reading Rainbow star LeVar Burton is the natural choice to host this year’s National Book Awards ceremony. “It’s an honor to return as host of the biggest night for books, especially in a moment when the freedom to read is at risk,” Burton said in a statement on October 13, per NPR. He also hosted the ceremony in 2019. The news comes after original host Drew Barrymore was ousted for attempting to return to her daytime talk show amid the writers strike. After facing tremendous backlash from critics who accused the actor of scabbing, Barrymore walked back her decision to begin the show’s fourth season in September. The writers strike ended shortly after the Barrymore blowback, but her WGA staffers refused to return to their jobs in response to her attempt to cross the picket line.
“The National Book Awards is an evening dedicated to celebrating the power of literature, and the incomparable contributions of writers to our culture,” National Book Foundation said in the September statement rescinding its offer to Barrymore. “Our commitment is to ensure that the focus of the Awards remains on celebrating writers and books, and we are grateful to Ms. Barrymore and her team for their understanding in this situation.”
Among the National Book Awards nominees is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose big year is only getting bigger. The 32-year-old author published his second book and first novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars, to critical acclaim in May. Now, that book is a finalist for this year’s National Book Awards. The Hunger Games–adjacent story is set in a dystopian America where inmates in a for-profit prison system fight to the death for their freedom with matches broadcast on national television. Adjei-Brenya’s tale follows two black women, who are both celebrity fighters and lovers, as they inch closer to freedom with each match. Additional standouts for this year’s Book Awards include Justin Torres’s Blackouts, a novel about personal and collective queer histories; Aaliyah Bilal’s debut short-story collection, Temple Folk, exploring the Black Muslin experience in America; and Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes, a nonfiction work comprising of 248 writings on Black memories, artifacts, and artworks. The winners will be announced at the ceremony on November 15.
Across the five categories, five finalists have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation: both Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Justin Torres were 5 Under 35 honorees in past years; Pilar Quintana and Lisa Dillman were finalists for Translated Literature in 2020; and Monica Youn was a finalist for Poetry in 2010 and a Longlister for Poetry in 2016. Below, the complete list of finalists for the 2023 National Book Awards.
Fiction
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
Aaliyah Bilal, Temple Folk
Paul Harding, This Other Eden
Hanna Pylväinen, The End of Drum-Time
Justin Torres, Blackouts
Nonfiction
Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Cristina Rivera Garza, Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice
Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes
Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir
John Vaillant, Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World
Poetry
John Lee Clark, How to Communicate
Craig Santos Perez, from unincorporated territory [åmot]
Evie Shockley, suddenly we
Brandon Som, Tripas
Monica Youn, From From
Translated Literature
Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny, Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur
David Diop, Beyond the Door of No Return, Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
Stênio Gardel, The Words That Remain, Translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato
Pilar Quintana, Abyss, Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
Astrid Roemer, On a Woman’s Madness, Translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
Young People’s Literature
Kenneth M. Cadow, Gather
Huda Fahmy, Huda F Cares?
Vashti Harrison, Big
Katherine Marsh, The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine
Dan Santat, A First Time for Everything
This post has been updated.
