National Book Award Winners: Fiction

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On March 15, 1950, a consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the first annual National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Their goal was to enhance the public’s awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general.

Since then, The National Book Awards have become the nation’s preeminent literary prizes, and The National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner the most important event on our literary calendar. The Winners, selected by five-member, independent judging panels for each genre, receive a $10,000 cash award and a crystal sculpture.

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  1. 1950
    The Man with the Golden Arm (50th anniv.)
    by Nelson Algren

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  2. 1951
    Collected Stories
    by William Faulkner

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  3. 1952
    From Here to Eternity
    by James Jones

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  4. 1953
    Invisible Man
    by Ralph Ellison

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  5. 1954

  6. 1955
    A Fable
    by William Faulkner

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  7. 1956
    ?
    Ten North Frederick
    by John O'hara

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  8. 1957
    Field of Vision (Bison Book S.)
    by Wright Morris

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  9. 1958
    The Wapshot Chronicle (Perennial Classics)
    by John Cheever

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  10. 1959
    The Magic Barrel: Stories
    by Bernard Malamud

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  11. 1961
    The Waters of Kronos
    by Conrad Richter

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  12. 1962
    The Moviegoer
    by Walker Percy

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  13. 1963
    Morte D'Urban (New York Review Books Classics)
    by J. F. Powers

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  14. 1964
    Centaur
    by John Updike

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  15. 1965
    Herzog (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

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  16. 1966
    The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
    by Katherine Anne Porter

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  17. 1967
    The Fixer (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Bernard Malamud

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  18. 1968
    The Eighth Day: A Novel
    by Thornton Wilder

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  19. 1969
    STEPS
    by Jerzy N. Kosinski

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  20. 1970
    Them (Modern Library)
    by Joyce Carol Oates

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  21. 1971

  22. 1972
    The Complete Stories
    by Flannery O'Connor

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  23. 1973
    Chimera
    by John Barth

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  24. 1973
    Augustus: A Novel
    by John Edward Williams

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  25. 1974
    A Crown of Feathers
    by Isaac Bashevis Singer

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  26. 1974
    Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Thomas Pynchon

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  27. 1975
    Dog Soldiers
    by Robert Stone

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  28. 1975
    ?
    The Hair of Harold Roux (Hardscrabble Books)
    by Thomas Williams

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  29. 1976
    JR (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by William Gaddis

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  30. 1977
    The Spectator Bird (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Wallace Stegner

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  31. 1978
    Blood Tie (Mary Lee Settle Collection)
    by Mary Lee Settle

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  32. 1979
    Going After Cacciato
    by Tim O'Brien

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  33. 1980
    Sophie's Choice
    by WILLIAM STYRON

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  34. 1981
    Plains Song: For Female Voices
    by Wright Morris

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  35. 1982
    Rabbit Is Rich
    by John Updike

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  36. 1983
    The Color Purple
    by Alice Walker

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  37. 1984
    Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories (Back Bay Books)
    by Ellen Gilchrist

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  38. 1985
    White Noise (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Don DeLillo

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  39. 1986
    World's Fair: A Novel
    by E.L. Doctorow

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  40. 1987
    Paco's Story (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Larry Heinemann

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  41. 1988
    Paris Trout (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Pete Dexter

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  42. 1989
    Spartina
    by John Casey

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  43. 1990
    Middle Passage
    by Charles Johnson

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  44. 1991
    Mating: A Novel
    by Norman Rush

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  45. 1992
    All the Pretty Horses (Vintage International)
    by Cormac Mccarthy

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  46. 1993
    The Shipping News
    by E. Annie Proulx

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  47. 1994
    A Frolic of His Own
    by William Gaddis

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  48. 1995
    Sabbath's Theater
    by Philip Roth

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  49. 1996
    Ship Fever and Other Stories
    by Andrea Barrett

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Created by Robot Co-op on Nov 30, 2005.
 

Comments

brunswickian
Brooklyn

Updates — 1 year ago

Swapped some books for updated editions so that the book cover is featured here. Sorry if that messes anyone up.


2007 winner — 1 year ago

added 2007 winner tree of smoke


Untitled — 1 year ago

Hated “The Corrections” and “The Shipping News” – don’t know what’s going on there.


hornbreaker
Providence

Bests and worsts — 2 years ago

I haven’t read very many of these, but out of those I have read, I thought some were amazing and the fact that some won amazed me!

My favorites: “Spartina” and “White Noise”
My head-scratchers: “In America” and “The Corrections”

Those of you who are working on this list, what do you think? What are your favorites? Which ones were picked because the jury realized they hadn’t read any of the finalists? Or why am I totally wrong about the ones I thought were terrible?