National Book Award Winners and Finalists (Fiction): 1950 – 2009

The National Book Awards are given to recognize achievements in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. To learn more about this preeminent literary prize, visit the official award site.

Below I have listed the winners and finalists for the FICTION award. Winners are in bold print. Books I’ve read are highlighted in Red with links to my reviews when available.

1950

• Nelson Algren – The Man with the Golden Arm

1951

• William Faulkner – The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
• Brendan Gill – The Trouble of One House

1952

• James Jones – From Here to Eternity (No review)
  
• James Agee – The Morning Watch
• Truman Capote – The Grass Harp
• William Faulkner – Requiem for a Nun
• Caroline Gordon – The Strange Children
• Thomas Mann – The Holy Sinner
• John P. Marquand – Melville Goodwin USA
• J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
• William Styron – Lie Down in Darkness
• Jessamyn West – The Witch Diggers
• Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny

1953

• Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
• Isabel Bolton – Many Mansions
• H. L. Davis – Winds of Morning
• Thomas Gallagher – The Gathering Darkness
• Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
• Carl Jones – Jefferson Selleck
• Peter Martin – The Landsman
• John Steinbeck – East of Eden  (read my review)
  
• William Carlos Williams – The Build Up

1954

• Saul Bellow – The Adventures of Augie March

1955

• William Faulkner – A Fable
• Harriet Arnow – The Dollmaker
• Hamilton Basso – The View from Pompey’s Head
• Davis Grubb – The Night of the Hunter
• Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution
• Milton Lott – The Last Hunt
• Frederick Manfred – The Last Grizzly
• William March – The Bad Seed
• Wright Morris – The Huge Season
• Frank Rooney – The Courts of Memory
• John Steinbeck – Sweet Thursday

1956

• John O’Hara – Ten North Frederick
• Paul Bowles – The Spider’s House
• Shirley Ann Grau – The Black Prince
• MacKinlay Kantor – Andersonville
• Flannery O’Connor – A Good Man is Hard to Find
• May Sarton – Faithful are the Wounds
• Robert Penn Warren – Band of Angels
• Eudora Welty – The Bride of the Innisfallen
• Herman Wouk – Marjorie Morningstar

1957

• Wright Morris – The Field of Vision
• Nelson Algren – Walk on the Wild Side
• James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room
• Saul Bellow – Seize the Day
• B. J. Chute – Greenwillow
• A. B. Guthrie – These Thousand Years
• John Hersey – A Single Pebble
• John Hunt – Generations of Men
• Edwin O’Connor – The Last Hurrah
• J. F. Powers – The Presence of Grace
• Elizabeth Spencer – The Voice at the Back Door
• James Thurber – Further Fables for Our Time

1958

• John Cheever – The Wapshop Chronicle
• James Agee – A Death in the Family
• James Gould Cozzens – By Love Possessed
• Mark Harris – Something About A Soldier
• Andrew Lytle – The Velvet Horn
• Bernard Malamud – The Assistant
• Wright Morris – Love Among the Cannibals
• Vladimir Nabokov – Pnin
• Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
• Nancy Wilson Ross – The Return of Lady Brace
• May Sarton – The Birth of a Grandfather

1959

• Bernard Malamud – The Magic Barrel
• J. P. Donleavy – The Ginger Man
• William Humphrey – Home from the Hill
• Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
• John O’Hara – From the Terrace
• J. R. Salamanca – The Lost Country
• Anya Seyton – The Winthrop Woman
• Robert Travers – Anatomy of a Murder

1960

• Philip Roth – Goodbye Columbus
• Louis Auchincloss – Pursuit of the Prodigal
• Hamilton Basso – The Light Infantry Ball
• Saul Bellow – Henderson the Rain King
• Evan S. Connell, Jr. – Mrs. Bridge
• William Faulkner – The Mansion
• Mark Harris – Wake Up, Stupid
• John Hersey – The War Lover
• H. L. Humes – Men Die
• Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House (no review)
  
• Elizabeth Janeway – The Third Choice
• James Jones – The Pistol
• Warren Miller – The Cool World
• James Purdy – Malcolm
• Leo Rostyn – The Return of H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N*
• John Updike – The Poorhouse Fair
• Robert Penn Warren – The Cave
• Morris West – The Devil’s Advocate

1961

• Conrad Richter – The Waters of Kronos
• Louis Auchincloss – The House of Five Talents
• Kay Boyle – Generation without Farewell
• John Hersey – The Child Buyer
• John Knowles - A Separate Place (no review)
  
• Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird (read my review)
  
• Wright Morris – Ceremony in a Lone Tree
• Flannery O’Connor – The Violent Bear It Away
• Elizabeth Spencer – The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales
• Francis Steegmuller – The Christening Party
• John Updike – Rabbit, Run
• Mildred Walker – The Body of a Young Man

1962

• Walker Percy – The Moviegoer
• Hortense Calisher – False Entry
• George P. Elliott – Among the Dangs
• Joseph Heller – Catch 22 (DNF)
  
• Bernard Malamud – A New Life
• J. D. Salinger – Franny and Zooey
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – The Spinoza of Market Street and Other Stories
• Edward Lewis Wallant – The Pawnbroker
• Joan Williams – The Morning and the Evening
• Richard Yates – Revolutionary Road

1963

• J. F. Powers – Morte D’Urban
• Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire
• Katherine Anne Porter – Ship of Fools
• Dawn Powell – The Golden Spur
• Clancy Sigal – Going Away
• John Updike – Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories

1964

• John Updike – The Centaur
• Bernard Malamud – Idiots First
• Mary McCarthy – The Group
• Thomas Pynchon – V
• Harvey Swados – The Will

1965

• Saul Bellow – Herzog
• Louis Auchincloss – The Rector of Justin
• John Hawkes – Second Skin
• Richard Kim – The Martyred
• Wallace Markfield - To an Early Grave
• Vladimir Nabokov – The Defense
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – Short Friday

1966

• Katherine A. Porter – The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
• Jesse Hill Ford – The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones
• Peter Matthiessen – At Play in the Fields of the Lord
• James Merrill – The (Diblos) Notebook
• Flannery O’Connor – Everything that Rises Must Converge
• Harry Petrakis – Pericles on 31st Street

1967

• Bernard Malamud – The Fixer
• Louis Auchincloss – The Embezzler
• Edwin O’Connor – All in the Family
• Walker Percy – The Last Gentleman
• Harry Petrakis – A Dream of Kings
• Wilfrid Sheeds – Office Politics

1968

• Thornton Wilder – The Eighth Day
• Norman Mailer – Why Are We in Vietnam?
• Joyce Carol Oates – A Garden of Earthly Delights (read my review)
• Chaim Potok – The Chosen
• William Styron – Confessions of Nat Turner

1969

• Jerzy Kosinski – Steps
• John Barth – Lost in the Funhouse
• Frederick Exley – A Fan’s Notes
• Joyce Carol Oates – Expensive People
• Thomas Rogers – The Pursuit of Happiness

1970

• Joyce Carol Oates – Them
• Leonard Gardner – Fat City
• Leonard Michaels – Going Places
• Jean Stafford – The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
• Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five (No review)
  

1971

• Saul Bellow – Mr. Sammler’s Planet
• James Dickey – Deliverance
• Shirley Hazzard – The Bay of Noon
• John Updike – Bech: A Book
• Eudora Welty – Losing Battles

1972

• Flannery O’Connor – The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
• Frederick Buechner – Lion Country
• E. L. Doctorow – The Book of Daniel
• Stanley Elkin – The Dick Gibson Show
• Tom McHale – Farragan’s Retreat
• Joyce Carol Oates – Wonderland
• Cynthia Ozick – The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories
• Walker Percy – Love Among the Ruins
• Earl Thompson – A Garden of Sand
• John Updike – Rabbit Redux

1973

• John Barth – Chimera
• John Williams – Augustus
• Brock Brauer – The Late Great Creature
• Alan Friedman – Hermaphrodeity
• Barry Hannah – Geronimo Rex
• George V. Higgins – The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• R. M. Koster – The Prince
• Vladimir Nabokov – Transparent Things
• Ishmael Reed – Mumbo Jumbo
• Thomas Rogers – The Confession of a Child of the Century
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – Enemies, A Love Story
• Eudora Welty – The Optimist’s Daughter

1974

• Thomas Pyncheon – Gravity’s Rainbow
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories
• Doris Betts – Beasts of the World and Other Stories
• John Cheever – The World of Apples
• Ellen Douglas – Apostles of Light
• Stanley Elkin – Searches and Seizures
• John Gardner – Nickel Mountain
• Tom McGuane – Ninety-Two in the Shade
• Wilfrid Sheed – People Will Always Be Kind
• Gore Vidal – Burr
• Joy Williams – State of Grace

1975

• Robert Stone – Dog Soldiers
• Thomas Williams – The Hair of Harold Roux
• Donald Barthelme – The Guilty Pleasures
• Gail Godwin – The Odd Woman
• Joseph Heller – Something Happened
• Toni Morrison – Sula
• Vladimir Nabokov – Look at the Harlequins!
• Grace Paley – Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
• Philip Roth – My Life as a Man
• Mark Smith – The Death of a Detective

1976

• Wiliam Gaddis – JR
• Saul Bellow – Humboldt’s Gift
• Hortense Calisher – The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher
• Johanna Kaplan – Other People’s Lives
• Vladimir Nabokov – Tyrant’s Destroyed and Other Stories
• Larry Woiwode – Beyond the Bedroom Wall

1977

• Wallace Stegner – The Spectator Bird
• Raymond Carver – Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
• MacDonald Harris – The Balloonist
• Ursula K. Le Guin – Orsinian Tales
• Cynthia Propper Seton – A Fine Romance

1978

• Mary Lee Settles - Blood Ties
• Robert Coover – The Public Burning
• Peter De Vries – Madder Music
• James Alan McPherson – Elbow Room
• John Sayles – Union Dues

1979

• Tim O’Brien – Going After Cacciato
• John Cheever – The Stories of John Cheever
• John Irving – The World According to Garp (No review)
  
• Diane Johnson – Lying Low
• David Plante – The Family

1980

• William Styron – Sophie’s Choice
• James Baldwin – Just Above My Head
• Norman Mailer – The Executioner’s Song
• Philip Roth – The Ghost Writer
• Scott Spencer – Endless Love

1981

• Wright Morris – Plains Song
• Shirley Hazzard – The Transit of Venus
• William Maxwell – So Long, See You Tomorrow
• Walker Percy – The Second Coming
• Eudora Welty – The Collected Stories

1982

• John Updike – Rabbit is Rich
• Mark Helprin – Ellis Island and Other Stories
• John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire (No review)
  
• Robert Stone – A Flag for Sunrise
• William Wharton – Dad

1983

• Alice Walker – The Color Purple (read my review)
  
• Gail Godwin – A Mother and Two Daughters
• Bobbie Ann Mason – Shiloh and Other Stories
• Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
• Anne Tyler – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (read my review)
  

1984

• Ellen Gilchrist – Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories
• Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs
• Philip Roth – The Anatomy Lesson

1985

• Don DeLillo – White Noise
• Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
• Hugh Nissenson – The Tree of Life

1986

• E. L. Doctorow – World’s Fair
• Norman Rush – Whites
• Peter Taylor – A Summon to Memphis

1987

• Larry Heinemann – Paco’s Story
• Alice McDermott – That Night
• Toni Morrison – Beloved
• Howard Norman – The Northern Lights
• Philip Roth – The Counterlife

1988

• Peter Dexter – Paris Trout (no review)
  
• Don DeLillo – Libra
• Mary McGarry Morris – Vanished
• James F. Powers – Wheat That Springeth Green
• Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons

1989

• John Casey – Spartina
• E. L. Doctorow – Billy Bathgate
• Katherine Dunn – Geek Love
• Oscar Hijuelos – Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
• Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club

1990

• Charles Johnson – Middle Passage
• Felipe Alfau – Chromos
• Elena Castedo – Paradise
• Jessica Hagedorn – Dogeaters
• Joyce Carol Oates – Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

1991

• Norman Rush – Mating
• Louis Begley – Wartime Lies
• Stephen Dixon – Frog
• Stanley Elkin – The MacGuffin
• Sandra Scofield – Beyond Deserving

1992

• Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses
• Dorothy Allison – Bastard Out of Carolina (read my review)
  
• Cristina Garcia – Dreaming in Cuban
• Edward P. Jones – Lost in the City
• Robert Stone – Outerbridge Reach

1993

• E. Annie Proulx – The Shipping News (no review)
  
• Amy Bloom – Come to Me
• Thom Jones – The Puligist at Rest
• Richard Powers – Operation Wandering Soul
• Bob Shacochis – Swimming in the Volcano

1994

• William Gaddis – A Frolic of His Own
• Ellen Currie – Moses Supposes
• Richard Dooling – White Man’s Grave
• Howard Norman – The Bird Artist
• Grace Paley – The Collected Stories

1995

• Philip Roth – Sabbath’s Theater
• Madison Smartt Bell – All Souls’ Rising
• Edwidge Danticat – Krik? Krak!
• Stephen Dixon – Interstate
• Rosario Ferre – The House on the Lagoon

1996

• Andrea Barrett – Ship Fever and Other Stories
• Ron Hansen – Atticus
• Elizabeth McCracken – The Giant’s House
• Stephen Millhauser – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
• Janet Peery – The River Beyond the World

1997

• Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
• Don DeLillo – Underworld (DNF)
  
• Diane Johnson – Le Divorce
• Ward Just – Echo House
• Cynthia Ozick – The Puttermesser Papers

1998

• Alice McDermott – Charming Billy
• Allegra Goodman – Kaaterskill Falls
• Gayl Jones – The Healing
• Robert Stone – Damascus Gate
• Thomas Wolfe – A Man in Full

1999

• Ha Jin – Waiting
• Andre Dubus III – The House of Sand and Fog
• Kent Haruf – Plainsong
• Patricia Henley – Hummingbird House
• Jean Thompson – Who Do You Love

2000

• Susan Sontag – In America
• Charles Baxter – The Feast of Love
• Alan Lightman – The Diagnosis
• Joyce Carol Oates – Blonde
• Francine Prose – Blue Angel

2001

• Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections
• Dan Chaon – Among the Missing
• Jennifer Egan – Look at Me
• Louise Erdrich – The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse
• Susan Straight – Highwire Moon

2002

• Julia Glass – Three Moons
• Mark Costello – Big If
• Adam Haslett – You Are Not A Stranger Here
• Martha McPhee – Gorgeous Lies
• Brad Watson – The Heaven of Mercury

2003

• Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire (read my review)
  
• T. C. Boyle – Drop City
• Edward P. Jones – The Known World
• Scott Spenser – A Ship Made of Paper
• Marianne Wiggins – Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel

2004

• Lily Tuck – The News from Paraguay
• Sarah Shun-lien Bynum – Madeleine is Sleeping
• Christine Schutt – Florida
• Joan Silber – Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories
• Kate Walbert – Our Kind

2005

• William T. Vollman – Europe Central
• E. L. Doctorow – The March
• Mary Gaitskill – Veronica
• Christopher Sorrentino – Trance
• Rene Steinke – Holy Skirts

2006

• Richard Powers – The Echo Maker (read my review)
  
• Mark Z. Danielewski – Only Revolutions (DNF)
  
• Ken Kalfus – A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
• Dana Spiotta – Eat the Document (read my review)
  
• Jess Walter – The Zero

2007

• Denis Johnson – Tree of Smoke
• Mischa Berlinski – Fieldwork
• Lydia Davis – Varieties of Disturbance
• Joshua Ferris – Then We Came to the End
• Jim Shepard – Like You’d Understand, Anyway

2008

• Peter Matthiessen – Shadow Country
• Aleksandar Hemon – The Lazarus Project
• Rachel Kushner – Telex from Cuba
• Marilynne Robinson – Home
• Savatore Scibona – The End

2009

• Colum McCann, Let The Great World Spin
• Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage
• Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
• Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite
• Marcel Theroux, Far North