National Book Award Winners: Fiction

Add to my lists | Print this list

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.

Pages: 1

  1. 1951
    Collected Stories of William Faulkner
    by William Faulkner

  2. 1952
    From Here to Eternity
    by James Jones

  3. 1953
    Invisible Man
    by Ralph Ellison

  4. 1954

  5. 1955
    A Fable
    by William Faulkner

  6. 1956
    ?
    Ten North Frederick
    by John O'hara

  7. 1957
    The Field of Vision (Bison Book)
    by Wright Morris

  8. 1958
    The Wapshot Chronicle (Perennial Classics)
    by John Cheever

  9. 1959
    The Magic Barrel: Stories
    by Bernard Malamud

  10. 1961
    The Waters of Kronos
    by Conrad Richter

  11. 1962
    The Moviegoer
    by Walker Percy

  12. 1963
    Morte D'Urban (New York Review Books Classics)
    by J.F. Powers

  13. 1964
    The Centaur
    by John Updike

  14. 1965
    Herzog (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

  15. 1966
    The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
    by Katherine Anne Porter

  16. 1967
    The Fixer (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Bernard Malamud

  17. 1968
    The Eighth Day: A Novel
    by Thornton Wilder

  18. 1969
    Steps
    by Jerzy Kosinski

  19. 1970
    Them (Modern Library)
    by Joyce Carol Oates

  20. 1971

  21. 1972
    The Complete Stories
    by Flannery O'Connor

  22. 1973
    Chimera
    by John Barth

  23. 1973
    Augustus: A Novel
    by John Edward Williams

  24. 1974
    A Crown of Feathers
    by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  25. 1974
    Gravity's Rainbow (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
    by Thomas Pynchon

  26. 1975
    Dog Soldiers
    by Robert Stone

  27. 1975
    ?
    The Hair of Harold Roux (Hardscrabble Books)
    by Thomas Williams

  28. 1976
    JR (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by William Gaddis

  29. 1977
    The Spectator Bird (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Wallace Stegner

  30. 1978
    Blood Tie (Mary Lee Settle Collection)
    by Mary Lee Settle

  31. 1979
    Going After Cacciato
    by Tim O'Brien

  32. 1980
    Sophie's Choice
    by WILLIAM STYRON

  33. 1981
    Plains Song: For Female Voices
    by Wright Morris

  34. 1982
    Rabbit Is Rich
    by John Updike

  35. 1983
    The Color Purple
    by Alice Walker

  36. 1984
    Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories (Back Bay Books)
    by Ellen Gilchrist

  37. 1985
    White Noise (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Don DeLillo

  38. 1986
    World's Fair: A Novel
    by E.L. Doctorow

  39. 1987
    Paco's Story (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Larry Heinemann

  40. 1988
    Paris Trout (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Pete Dexter

  41. 1989
    Spartina
    by John Casey

  42. 1990
    Middle Passage
    by Charles Johnson

  43. 1991
    Mating: A Novel
    by Norman Rush

  44. 1992
    All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, Book 1)
    by Cormac McCarthy

  45. 1993
    The Shipping News
    by E. Annie Proulx

  46. 1994
    A Frolic of His Own
    by William Gaddis

  47. 1995
    Sabbath's Theater
    by Philip Roth

  48. 1996
    Ship Fever and Other Stories
    by Andrea Barrett

Pages: 1

This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists.
Created by Robot Co-op on Nov 30, 2005.
 

Comments

Vietnam — 12 weeks ago

Was looking through the list and reading the descriptions… Wow, how many of these books involve Vietnam?


2010 winner — 1 year ago

added 2010 winner Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon


2007 winner — 3 years ago

added 2007 winner tree of smoke


Untitled — 4 years ago

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


Bests and worsts — 5 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?




or
Login with Facebook