NEW YORK (AP) – Fiction by Percival Everett and Ling Ma, nonfiction by Annie Proulx and biographies of George Balanchine and J. Edgar Hoover are among the winners of National Book Critics Circle awards. Former US poet Joy Harjo has won an honorary award for lifetime achievement.
Last Summer’s National Award winner for fiction, “The Rabbit Hutch” by Tess Gunty, is a nominee for best first novel. Other contenders announced Tuesday night include Ed Yong’s “Big World,” recently awarded a Carnegie Award from the American Library Association, and the poetry collection “Milkweed Smithereens,” by Bernadette Mayer, who died in November. at the age of 77.
The winners will be announced on March 23rd during a ceremony in Manhattan. In addition to Harjo’s award, NBCC will also honor former critics’ circle president Barbara Hoffert, San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore and critic Jennifer Wilson, who writes for The Nation and The New York Times.
In fiction, nominees include Everett’s book “Dr. No,” Ma’s story collection “Bliss Montage,” Namwali Serpell’s “The Furrows,” and two translated books: “A New Name: Septology VI-VII” by Jon Fosse and “All the Lovers in the Night” by Mieko Kawakami.
The biographical finalists are Jazmina Barrera’s “Linea Nigra: Essay on Essay and Earthquakes,” Hua Hsu’s “Stay True: A Memoir,” Dorthe Nors’ “Telephone to Earth: A Year on the North Coast,” by Darryl Pinckney’s “Back in September: A Literary Study on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan” and Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ “The Man Who Could Move the Clouds.”
In biography, the nominees are Beverly Gage’s Hoover biography “G-Man,” Jennifer Homans’ “Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century,” Kerri K. Greenidge’s “The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family,” Clare Mac Cumhaill’s and Rachael Wiseman’s “Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life” and Aaron Sachs’ “From the Deep: Herman Melville, Louis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times.”
Pulitzer Prize winner Margo Jefferson’s “Creating the Nervous System” is a finalist for criticism, along with “Our Strangers” by Rachel Aviv, Timothy Bewes “Free Indirect: Novel in a Post Fictional Age,” Peter Brooks “Misguided by the Story” and “When Women Kill” by Alia Trabucco Zerán: Four Crimes Told.
In nonfiction, nominees other than Yong include Proulx’s ecology “Fen, Bog, & Swamp,” Isaac Butler’s “Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Make Things,” Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s “Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands”. ” and Joseph Osmundson’s essay collection “Virology.”
Meyer was a finalist in the poetry category, along with Mosab Abu Toha’s “Things You Can Find Searching in My Ear,” Cynthia Cruz’s “Hotel Oblivion,” David Hernandez’s “Hello I Must Be Going” and “Girls.” ” by Paul Hlava Ceballos.
For the first time, NBCC will award an award for translation. The nominees are Boris Dralyuk’s translation from Russian of “Grey Bees” by Andrey Kurkov, Jennifer Croft’s translation from Polish by Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s “The Books of Jacob,” Fady Joudah’s translation from Arabic by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat “You Can”. Be the Last Leaf,” Mara Faye Lethem’s translation from the Catalan of Irene Solà’s “When I Sing, Mountains Dance,” Christina MacSweeney’s translation from the Spanish of Barrera’s “Linea Nigra” and Mark Polizzotti’s translation from from the French of Scholastique Mukasonga “Kibogo”. ”
Gunty is a finalist for best debut, along with “The School for Good Mothers” by Jessamine Chan, “If I Survive You,” “Brother Alive” by Zain Khalid, “Ancestor Trouble,” by Maud Newton, ” Night of the,” by Morgan Talty. Living Rez” and Vauhini Vara “The Immortal King Rao”.
NBCC was founded in 1974, and includes more than 600 members from around the country.