Award year

2025 National Book Critics Circle Award

Announced March 26, 2026

The National Book Critics Circle announced its awards for books published in 2025 on March 26, 2026, at a ceremony at the New School in New York. The six book categories each had five finalists. Han Kang's We Do Not Part, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, won in fiction, and Karen Hao's Empire of AI won in nonfiction. Kevin Young's Night Watch took the poetry prize, Arundhati Roy's Mother Mary Comes to Me won in autobiography, Alex Green's A Perfect Turmoil won in biography, and Quinn Slobodian's Hayek's Bastards won in criticism. The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize went to Neige Sinno's Sad Tiger, translated by Natasha Lehrer, and the John Leonard Prize for a first book went to Nicholas Boggs's Baldwin: A Love Story.

Sources: official announcement 1, official announcement 2

Fiction

Winner
We Do Not Part
Han Kang
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Audition
Katie Kitamura
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)
Solvej Balle
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Antidote
Karen Russell
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Wilderness
Angela Flournoy
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Nonfiction

Winner
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Karen Hao
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
America, América: A New History of the New World
Greg Grandin
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins
Barbara Demick
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson
Gardiner Harris
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Also recognized

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott AndersonFinalist

Biography

Winner
A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled
Alex Green
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star
Mayukh Sen
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution
Amanda Vaill
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore
Ashley D. Farmer
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford
Carla Kaplan
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Autobiography

Winner
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
A Truce That Is Not Peace
Miriam Toews
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Memorial Days
Geraldine Brooks
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Paper Girl
Beth Macy
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Shattered
Hanif Kureishi
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Poetry

Winner
Night Watch
Kevin Young
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Chronicle of Drifting
Yuki Tanaka
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Death of the First Idea
Rickey Laurentiis
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Other Love
Henri Cole
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Unravel
Tolu Oloruntoba
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Criticism

Winner
Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right
Quinn Slobodian
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue
Yoko Tawada
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Greyhound
Joanna Pocock
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
Viet Thanh Nguyen
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize

Winner
Sad Tiger
Neige Sinno
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue
Yoko Tawada
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Heart Lamp
Banu Mushtaq
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Near Distance
Hanna Stoltenberg
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Frog in the Throat
Markus Werner
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Wax Child
Olga Ravn
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

John Leonard Prize

Winner
Baldwin: A Love Story
Nicholas Boggs
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

NBCC Award
Crown
Evanthia Bromiley
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Hunchback
Saou Ichikawa
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist
Liz Pelly
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
Salvage
Hedgie Choi
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
NBCC Award
The Slip
Lucas Schaefer
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

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