National Book Award: fiction

The National Book Awards are annual American awards honoring American writers for books published in the United States. The awards were established in 1936, abandoned during World War Two, and reestablished in 1950. General fiction was one of four categories when the awards were reestablished, but starting in 1980, several additional fiction prizes were added, including separate prizes for hardcover and paperback books. The single, all-inclusive fiction prize was restored a few years later.

2025: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), by Rabih Alameddine 

2024: James, by Percival Everett

2023: Blackouts, by Justin Torres

2022: The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty

2021: Hell of a Book, by Jason Mott

2020: Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu

2019: Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi

2018: The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez

2017: Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward

2016: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead

2015: Fortune Smiles: Stories, by Adam Johnson

2014: Redeployment, by Phil Klay

2013: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBridge

2012: The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

2011: Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward

2010: Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon

2009: Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann

2008: Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen

2007: Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson

2006: The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers

2005: Europe Central, by William T. Vollmann

2004: The News from Paraguay, by Lily Tuck

2003: The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazard

2002: Three Junes, by Julia Glass

2001: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen

2000: In America, by Susan Sontag

1999: Waiting, by Ha Jin

1998: Charming Billy, by Alice MCDermott

1997: Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier

1996: Ship Fever and Other Stories, by Andrea Barrett

1995: Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth

1994: A Frolic of His Own, by William Gaddis

1993: The Shipping News, by A. Annie Proulx

1992: All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy

1991: Mating, by Norman Rush

1990: Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson

1989: Spartina, by John Casey

1988: Paris Trout, by Pete Dexter

1987: Paco’s Story, by Larry Heinemann

1986: World’s Fair, by E.L. Doctorow

1985: White Noise, by Don DeLillo

1984: Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist

1983: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (hardcover)

1983: The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, by Eudora Welty (paperback)

1982: Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike (hardcover)

1982: So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell (paperback)

1981: Plains Song: For Female Voices, by Wright Morris (hardcover)

1981: The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever (paperback)

1980: Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron (hardcover)

1980: The World According to Garp, by John Irving (paperback)

1979: Going After Cacciato, by Tim O’Brien

1978: Blood Tie, by Mary Lee Settle

1977: The Spectator Bird, by Wallace Stegner

1976: J R, by William Gaddis

1975 (two prizes): Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone

1975 (two prizes): The Hair of Harold Roux, by Thomas Williams

1974 (two prizes): Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

1974 (two prizes): A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer

1973 (two prizes): Chimera, by John Barth

1973 (two prizes): Augustus, by John Edward Williams

1972: The Complete Stories, by Flannery O’Connor

1971: Mr. Sammler’s Planet, by Saul Bellow

1970: Them, by Joyce Carol Oates

1969: Steps, by Jerzy Kosinski

1968: The Eighth Day, by Thornton Wilder

1967: The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud

1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, by Katherine Anne Porter

1965: Herzog, by Saul Bellow

1964: The Centaur, by John Updike

1963: Morte d’Urban, by J.F. Powers

1962: The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy

1961: The Waters of Kronos, by Conrad Richter

1960: Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth

1959: The Magic Barrel, by Bernard Malamud

1958: The Wapshot Chronicle, by John Cheever

1957: The Field of Vision, by Wright Morris

1956: Ten North Frederick, by John O’Hara

1955: A Fable, by William Faulkner

1954: The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow

1953: Invisible Man, by Ralph Elliso

1952: From Here To Eternity, by James Jones

1951: The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, by William Faulkner

1950: The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren