The National Book Award for Fiction (2024)

“Percival Everett’s reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn centers Jim, an enslaved runaway who was relegated to the role of a mild-mannered companion in Mark Twain’s original telling. As Jim and Huck journey down the Mississippi River, readers see the world through James’s point of view—as he adjusts his language, mannerisms, and appearance to both appease the white people around him and to protect his own life. James considers authorial intent and the possibilities of agency, even within the most racist and inequitable contexts.” - National Book Foundation

“Impending death haunts the debut novel Martyr!, in which the poet Cyrus Shams grapples with the loss that has permeated his life... alongside Cyrus’s own alcohol and drug addiction recovery. As his obsession with martyrs grows, Cyrus tasks himself with uncovering his family’s past, writing a novel, and meeting a terminally ill Iranian artist living out her last days at the Brooklyn Museum, in Kaveh Akbar’s contemplation of grief, addiction, love, and finding hope and meaning in art.” - National Book Foundation

“My Friends by Hisham Matar follows Khaled and two friends living in exile in Britain as they come together and apart over decades, wrestling with revolution, war, and their loyalties to themselves and to their homeland.” - National Book Foundation

“In All Fours, when an unnamed 45-year-old female artist drives from Los Angeles to New York City for a two-week writing retreat, she spontaneously discards her plans and checks into a nondescript motel and begins to spend time with a married 31-year-old man, commissioning his wife to redecorate her rented room, and daring to imagine an entirely new way of living. Miranda July tells the story of one woman’s—at times desperate—desire to reinvent her life and to create art in the face of monotony, menopause, and mortality.” - National Book Foundation

“Set in Lagos, Nigeria, the narrators in Ghostroots’ 12 stories reckon with every-day horror: infidelity, mysterious diseases, recollections of a tragic accident, and the pain of seeing their loved ones deteriorate. Throughout this debut collection, ’Pemi Aguda compassionately explores a cast of characters haunted by regrets and searching for freedom from the ghosts of their ancestors.” - National Book Foundation

"Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection follows a cast of chronically online characters yearning for intimacy, approval, and connection in real life. As they navigate repeated rejection—from dating apps and social media feeds to bedrooms and bars—the characters in these seven connected stories lay bare the awkwardness, isolation, and occasional delusion, of life and love in the internet age." - National Book Foundation

“Outside of the US, Rachel Kushner introduces readers to 'Sadie Smith'—a 34-year-old undercover agent and American expat who is hired to infiltrate a group of radical French environmentalists. A nonbeliever amongst believers, Sadie is at the center of a community and remains ruthlessly individual even as her employers continue to raise the stakes. Part espionage and part existential thriller, Creation Lake dives deep into the world of ideology, environmental activism, and ultimately, the nature of identity itself.” - National Book Foundation

“On an unusually warm Sunday in November, housewife, mother, and former tennis champion Kathleen Beckett puts on her old, red bathing suit, enters her apartment complex’s semi-abandoned pool, and refuses to come out. Set over the course of eight hours, Jessica Anthony’s The Most paints an intimate portrait of marriage in the late 1950s—and the secrets, expectations, and lost loves that tells the story of one seemingly unremarkable couple and a larger cultural moment.” - National Book Foundation

“Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio follows the fiercely independent and academic overachiever Catalina Ituralde as she navigates complex family dynamics at home, micro-aggressions in and outside of the classroom, and the looming threat of her grandfather’s deportation. Told over the course of an undocumented Harvard student’s senior year, Catalina is the moving story of a young writer intent on finding love and humor in spite of—or, perhaps because of—the uncertainty of her future.” - National Book Foundation

“Sam Sax’s queer, Jewish coming-of-age story follows Ezra in the span of time between when they light themself on fire and when they die at a protest outside of Trump Tower. Told in vignettes that detail everyone the novel’s protagonist has ever loved, every place they’ve ever felt accepted or excluded, and the reasons they decided on this final act of self-immolation, Yr Dead is a searing exploration of the histories, memories, and politics that shape our present and our future.” - National Book Foundation