The US National Book Critics Circle Awards 2024 longlists were announced in New York, USA from December 16 – 19, 2024.
The National Book Critics Circle celebrates the best books published in English in Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism in the United States since 1974. Finalists are nominated, evaluated, and selected by a 24-member jury of critics and editors from some of the country’s leading print and online publications, and critics whose works appear in these publications. Previous winners include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013), Nicole R. Fleetwood, francine j. harris, Raven Leilani (2020), and Safiya Sinclair and Jonny Steinberg (2023).
The 2024 edition kicked off with the announcement of the award’s longlists for the first time in its history.
“The NBCC (National Book Critics Circle) is proud to release our longlists for the first time in our 50-year history,” says NBCC president Heather Scott Partington. “Revealing them allows us to honor more writers, translators, and books than we ever have in a single year.”
The writers of African descent in the running are;
- Great Expectations, Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth)
- James, Percival Everett (Doubleday)
- My Friends, Hisham Matar (Random House)
- Sister Deborah, Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti (Archipelago)
- Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us, Legacy Russell (Verso)
- The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, Jesse McCarthy (University of Chicago)
- Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life, Sofia Samatar (Soft Skull)
- There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)
- Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, Tiya Miles (Penguin Press)
- Slaveroad, John Edgar Wideman (Scribner)
- There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)
- We’re Alone, Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf)
Traces of Enayat, Iman Mersal, translated from Arabic by Robin Moger (Transit), Nonfiction
Reactions
Unfortunately had to have the fact that I was longlisted for two National Book Critics Circle Awards in the same cycle explained to me like I was a child but I am very thankful for the honor, endless gratitude. When I sit down to write I am oftentimes operating against the rigid suggestions of genre and I suppose having the results of that honored in this specific way feels nice. Thankful for the company and the labor of the judges.
Hanif Abdurraqib
Honorated to see Sister Deborah longlisted in the prestigious National Book Critics Circle’s Award for Fiction! Sister Deborah translated by Mark Polizzotti is published in USA by my editor Archipelago Books
Scholastique Mukasonga
Black Meme has been noted by the National Book Critics Circle for its 2024 Longlist ✨Grateful for the company of all those included📓 #BLACKMEME
Legacy Russell
The finalists will be announced on January 23 and the winners are made public at a New York, USA ceremony on March 20, 2025.
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