From nationalbook.org:
Twenty-five Finalists to contend for National Book Awards in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature
The 25 Finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature were announced with The New York Times. The five Finalists in each category were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, and were advanced from the Longlists announced in September with The New Yorker.
Across the five categories, one writer and one translator have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation: Leri Price and Samar Yazbek were Finalists in 2021 for Planet of Clay, and, for her translations, Price was Longlisted in 2023 for No One Prayed Over Their Graves and a Finalist in 2019 for Death Is Hard Work, both written by Khaled Khalifa. All of the Finalists in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature are first-time National Book Award honorees. Five of the 25 Finalists are debuts, and ten independent and university publishers are represented.
Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel Martyr! contemplates grief, addiction, and the work of finding meaning in art through the story of the newly sober and orphaned poet Cyrus Shams.
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian American writer who has taken the literary scene by storm with his debut novel, Martyr!, one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year. He is also the author of the poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell. Akbar is director of the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Iowa. He is the founder of Divedapper and Poetry Editor of The Nation. In 2018, NPR called Akbar “poetry’s biggest cheerleader.” In 2024, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Martyr! follows a 20-something Iranian American poet named Cyrus in his early years of sobriety. When he becomes fascinated with the stories of historical martyrs, he finds himself on his way to interview a terminally ill artist in Brooklyn—a journey and conversation that changes the course of his life. Akbar will appear at the 2025 Festival.
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