James McBride's 'The Good Lord Bird' wins National Book Award for Fiction

On Wednesday of last week, the National Book Foundation announced the 2013 National Book Award Winners.

This year’s slate of winners, in four categories, included:

Fiction – “The Good Lord Bird” by James McBridge

Nonfiction – “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” by George Packer

Young People’s Literature – “The Thing About Luck” by Cynthia Kadohata

Poetry – “Incardadine: Poems” by Mary Szybist

These four books were selected from five finalists in each category. The non-winning finalists in each category included the following books.

Fiction:
- “The Flamethowers” by Rachel Kushner
- “The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri
- “Bleeding Edge” by Thomas Pynchon
- “Tenth of December” by George Saunders

Nonfiction:
- “The Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Fanklin” by Jill Lepore
- “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields” by Wendy Lower
- “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832” by Alan Taylor
- “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright

Poetry:
- “Metaphysical Dog” by Frank Bidart
- “Stay, Illusion” by Lucie Brock-Broido
- “The Big Smoke” by Adrian Matejka
- “Black Aperture” by Matt Rasmussen

Young People’s Literature:
- “The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp” by Kathi Appelt
- “Far Far Away” by Tom McNeal
- “Picture Me Gone” by Meg Rosoff
- “Boxers & Saints” by Gene Luen Yang

Many of you will be familiar with some of the past National Book Award Winners, especially from the fiction category. Past NBA fiction winners include the following books:

2013: James McBride — The Good Lord Bird
2012: Louise Erdrich — The Round House
2011: Jesmyn Ward — Salvage the Bones
2010: Jaimy Gordon — Lord of Misrule
2009: Colum McCann — Let the Great World Spin
2008: Peter Matthiessen — Shadow Country
2007: Denis Johnson — Tree of Smoke
2006: Richard Powers — The Echo Maker
2005: William Vollmann — Europe Central
2004: Lily Tuck — The News from Paraguay
2003: Shirley Hazzard — The Great Fire
2002: Julia Glass — Three Junes
2001: Jonathan Franzen — The Corrections
2000: Susan Sontag — In America
1999: Ha Jin — Waiting
1998: Alice McDermott — Charming Billy
1997: Charles Frazier — Cold Mountain
1996: Andrea Barrett — Ship Fever and Other Stories
1995: Philip Roth — Sabbath's Theater
1994: William Gaddis — A Frolic of His Own
1993: E. Annie Proulx — The Shipping News
1992: Cormac McCarthy — All the Pretty Horses
1991: Norman Rush — Mating
1990: Charles Johnson — Middle Passage
1989: John Casey — Spartina
1988: Pete Dexter — Paris Trout
1987: Larry Heinemann — Paco's Story
1986: E.L. Doctorow — World's Fair
1985: Don DeLillo — White Noise
1984: Ellen Gilchrist — Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories
1983: Alice Walker — The Color Purple
1983: Eudora Welty — The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
1982: John Updike — Rabbit is Rich
1982: William Maxwell — So Long, See You Tomorrow
1981: Wright Morris — Plains Song: For Female Voices
1981: John Cheever — The Stories of John Cheever
1980: William Styron — Sophie's Choice
1980: John Irving — The World According to Garp
1979: Tim O'Brien — Going After Cacciato
1978: Mary Lee Settle — Blood Tie
1977: Wallace Stegner — The Spectator Bird
1976: William Gaddis — J R
1975: Thomas Williams — The Hair of Harold Roux
1975: Robert Stone — Dog Soldiers
1974: Isaac Bashevis Singer — A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories
1974: Thomas Pynchon — Gravity's Rainbow
1973: John Edward Williams — Augustus
1973: John Barth — Chimera
1972: Flannery O'Connor — The Complete Stories
1971: Saul Bellow — Mr. Sammler's Planet
1970: Joyce Carol Oates — them
1969: Jerzy Kosinski — Steps
1968: Thornton Wilder — The Eighth Day
1967: Bernard Malamud — The Fixer

1966: Katherine Anne Porter — The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

1965: Saul Bellow — Herzog
1964: John Updike — The Centaur
1963: J. F. Powers — Morte d'Urban
1962: Walker Percy — The Moviegoer
1961: Conrad Richter — The Waters of Kronos

1960: Philip Roth — Goodbye, Columbus

1959: Bernard Malamud — The Magic Barrel

1958: John Cheever — The Wapshot Chronicle

1957: Wright Morris — The Field of Vision

1956: John O'Hara — Ten North Frederick

1955: William Faulkner — A Fable

1954: Saul Bellow — The Adventures of Augie March

1953: Ralph Ellison — Invisible Man

1952: James Jones — From Here to Eternity

1951: William Faulkner — The Collected Stories of William Faulkner

1950: Nelson Algren — The Man with the Golden Arm

For more information about the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards, visit www.nationalbook.org.