National Book Critics Circle Award

The National Book Critics Circle Award is a literary award from American literary critics . It has been awarded annually since 1975 for new books in English (including translations), currently (2018) in the categories of novels , non-fiction , poetry , autobiography , biography , criticism .

The National Book Critics Circle, the literary critics association behind the award, also awards the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and the John Leonard Prize.

Award winners

novel

1975: EL Doctorow , Ragtime
1976: John Gardner , October Light
1977: Toni Morrison , Song of Solomon
1978: John Cheever , The Stories of John Cheever
1979: Thomas Flanagan , The Year of the French
1980: Shirley Hazzard , The Transit of Venus
1981: John Updike , Rabbit Is Rich
1982: Stanley Elkin , George Mills
1983: William Kennedy , Ironweed
1984: Louise Erdrich , Love Medicine
1985: Anne Tyler , The Accidental Tourist
1986: Reynolds Price , Kate Vaiden
1987: Philip Roth , The Counterlife
1988: Bharati Mukherjee , The Middleman and Other Stories
1989: EL Doctorow , Billy Bathgate
1990: John Updike , Rabbit at Rest
1991: Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres
1992: Cormac McCarthy , All the Pretty Horses
1993: Ernest J. Gaines , A Lesson Before Dying
1994: Carol Shields , The Stone Diaries
1995: Stanley Elkin , Mrs. Ted Bliss
1996: Gina Berriault , Women in Their Beds
1997: Penelope Fitzgerald , The Blue Flower
1998: Alice Munro , The Love of a Good Woman
1999: Jonathan Lethem , Motherless Brooklyn
2000: Jim Crace , Being Dead
2001: WG Sebald , Austerlitz
2002: Ian McEwan , Atonement
2003: Edward P. Jones , The Known World
2004: Marilynne Robinson , Gilead
2005: EL Doctorow , The March
2006: Kiran Desai , The Inheritance of Loss
2007: Junot Díaz , The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2008: Roberto Bolaño , 2666
2009: Hilary Mantel , Wolf Hall
2010: Jennifer Egan , A Visit from the Goon Squad
2011: Edith Pearlman , Binocular Vision
2012: Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
2013: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Americanah
2014: Marilynne Robinson , Lila
2015: Paul Beatty , The Sellout
2016: Louise Erdrich , LaRose
2017: Joan Silber , Improvement
2018: Anna Burns , Milkman
2019: Edwidge Danticat , Everything Inside

Non-fiction

1975: RWB Lewis , Edith Wharton: A Biography
1976: Maxine Hong Kingston , The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
1977: W. Jackson Bate , Samuel Johnson
1978: Maureen Howard , Facts of Life and Garry Willis , Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
1979: Telford Taylor , Munich: The Price of Peace
1980: Ronald Steel , Walter Lippmann and the American Century
1981: Stephen Jay Gould , The Mismeasure of Man
1982: Robert A. Caro , The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
1983: Seymour M. Hersh , The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House
1984: Freeman Dyson , Weapons and Hope
1985: J. Anthony Lukas , Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
1986: Barry Lopez , Arctic Dreams
1987: Richard Rhodes , The Making of the Atomic Bomb
1988: Taylor Branch , Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63
1989: Michael Dorris , The Broken Cord
1990: Shelby Steele , The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America
1991: Susan Faludi , Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
1992: Norman Maclean , Young Men and Fire
1993: Alan Lomax , The Land Where the Blues Began
1994: Lynn Nicholas , The Rape of Europa
1995: Jonathan Harr , A Civil Action
1996: Jonathan Raban , Bad Land
1997: Anne Fadiman , The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
1998: Philip Gourevitch , We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
1999: Jonathan Weiner , Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior
2000: Ted Conover , Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
2001: Nicholson Baker , Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper
2002: Samantha Power , A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
2003: Paul Hendrickson , Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
2004: Diarmaid MacCulloch , The Reformation: A History
2005: Swetlana Alexandrowna Alexijewitsch , Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
2006: Simon Schama , Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution
2007: Harriet Washington , Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
2008: Dexter Filkins , The Forever War
2009: Richard Holmes , The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
2010: Isabel Wilkerson , The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
2011: Maya Jasanoff , Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
2012: Andrew Solomon , Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
2013: Sheri Fink , Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
2014: David Brion Davis , The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation
2015: Sam Quinones , Dreamland: The True Story of America's Opiate Epidemic
2016: Matthew Desmond , Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
2017: Frances FitzGerald , The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
2018: Steve Coll , Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan, 2001–2016
2019: Patrick Radden Keefe , Say Nothing: The True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Poetry

1975: John Ashbery , Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
1976: Elizabeth Bishop , Geography III
1977: Robert Lowell , Day by Day
1978: LE Sissman , Hello, Darkness
1979: Philip Levine , Ashes and 7 Years from Somewhere
1980: Frederick Seidel , Sunrise
1981: AR Ammons , A Coast of Trees
1982: Katha Pollitt , Antarctic Traveler
1983: James Merrill , The Changing Light at Sandover
1984: Sharon Olds , The Dead and the Living
1985: Louise Glück , The Triumph of Achilles
1986: Edward Hirsch , Wild Gratitude
1987: CK Williams , Flesh and Blood
1988: Donald Hall , That One Day
1989: Rodney Jones , Transparent Gestures
1990: Amy Gerstler , Bitter Angel
1991: Albert Goldbarth , Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology
1992: Hayden Carruth , Collected Shorter Poems 1946–1991
1993: Mark Doty , My Alexandria
1994: Mark Rudman , rider
1995: William Matthews , Time & Money
1996: Robert Hass , Sun Under Wood
1997: Charles Wright , Black Zodiac
1998: Marie Ponsot , The Bird Catcher
1999: Ruth Stone , Ordinary Words
2000: Judy Jordan , Carolina Ghost Woods
2001: Albert Goldbarth , Saving Lives
2002: BH Fairchild , Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
2003: Susan Stewart , Columbarium
2004: Adrienne Rich , The School Among the Ruins
2005: Jack Gilbert , Refusing Heaven
2006: Troy Jollimore , Tom Thomson in Purgatory
2007: Mary Jo Bang , Elegy
2008: Juan Felipe Herrera , Half the World in Light and August Kleinzahler , Sleeping It Off in Rapid City
2009: Rae Armantrout , Versed
2010: CD Wright , One with Others
2011: Laura Kasischke , Space, in Chains
2012: DA Powell , Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys
2013: Frank Bidart , Metaphysical Dog
2014: Claudia Rankine , Citizen: An American Lyric
2015: Ross Gay , Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
2016: Ishion Hutchinson , House of Lords and Commons
2017: Layli Long Soldier , whereas
2018: Ada Limón , The Carrying
2019: Morgan Parker , Magical Negro

Biography / autobiography

1983: Joyce Johnson , Minor Characters
1984: Joseph Frank , Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-59
1985: Leon Edel , Henry James: A Life
1986: Arnold Rampersad , The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941
1987: Donald Howard , Chaucer: His Life, His Work, His World
1988: Richard Ellmann , Oscar Wilde
1989: Geoffrey C. Ward , A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt
1990: Robert A. Caro , Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
1991: Philip Roth , Patrimony: A True Story
1992: Carol Brightman , Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World
1993: Edmund White , Genet
1994: Mikal Gilmore , Shot in the Heart
1995: Robert Polito , Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson
1996: Frank McCourt , Angela's Ashes
1997: James Tobin , Ernie Pyle's War
1998: Sylvia Nassar , A Beautiful Mind
1999: Henry Wiencek , The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White
2000: Herbert P. Bix , Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
2001: Adam Sisman , Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson
2002: Janet Browne , Charles Darwin: The Power of Place
2003: William Taubman , Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
2004: Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan , De Kooning: An American Master

Autobiography

2005: Francine du Plessix Gray , Them: A Memoir of Parents
2006: Daniel Mendelsohn , The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
2007: Edwidge Danticat , Brother, I'm Dying
2008: Ariel Sabar , My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq
2009: Diana Athill , Somewhere Towards the End
2010: Darin Strauss , Half a Life
2011: Mira Bartók , The Memory Palace: A Memoir
2012: Leanne Shapton , Swimming Studies
2013: Amy Wilentz , Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti
2014: Roz Chast , Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
2015: Margo Jefferson , Negroland
2016: Hope years , Lab Girl
2017: Xioulu Guo , Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China
2018: Nora Krug , Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home
2019: Chanel Miller , Know My Name: A Memoir

biography

2005: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin , American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
2006: Julie Phillips , James Tiptree, Jr .: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
2007: Tim Jeal , Stanley: The Impossible Life Of Africa's Greatest Explorer
2008: Patrick French , The World is What it is: The Authorized Biography of VS Naipaul
2009: Blake Bailey , Cheever: A Life
2010: Sarah Bakewell , How To Live: Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
2011: John Lewis Gaddis , George F. Kennan: An American Life
2012: Robert A. Caro , The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
2013: Leo Damrosch , Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
2014: John Lahr , Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
2015: Charlotte Gordon , Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
2016: Ruth Franklin , Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
2017: Caroline Fraser , Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
2018: Christopher Bonanos , Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous
2019: Josh Levin , The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

criticism

1975: Paul Fussell , The Great War and Modern Memory
1976: Bruno Bettelheim , The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
1977: Susan Sontag , On Photography
1978: Meyer Schapior , Modern Art: 19th & 20th Centuries, Selected Papers
1979: Elaine Pagels , The Gnostic Gospels
1980: Helen Vendler , Part of Nature: Modern American Poets
1981: Virgil Thomson , A Virgil Thomson Reader
1982: Gore Vidal , The Second American Revolution and Other Essays
1983: John Updike , Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism
1984: Robert Hass , Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry
1985: William Gass , Habitations of the World
1986: Joseph Brodsky , Less Than One: Selected Essays
1987: Edwin Denby , Dance Writings
1988: Clifford Geertz , Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author
1989: John Clive , Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History
1990: Arthur Danto , Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present
1991: Lawrence L. Langer , Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory
1992: Garry Wills , Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remand America
1993: John Dizikes , Opera in America: A Cultural History
1994: Gerald Early , The Culture of Bruising
1995: Robert Darnton , The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolution France
1996: William Gass , Finding a Form
1997: Mario Vargas Llosa , Making Waves
1998: Gary Giddins , Visions of Jazz: The First Century
1999: Jorge Luis Borges , Selected Non-Fictions
2000: Cynthia Ozick , Quarrel & Quandary
2001: Martin Amis , The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000
2002: William Gass , Tests of Time
2003: Rebecca Solnit , River of Shadows
2004: Patrick Neate , Where You're At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet
2005: William Logan , The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin
2006: Lawrence Weschler , Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
2007: Alex Ross , The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
2008: Seth Lerer , Children's Literature: A Reader's History
2009: Eula Biss , Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
2010: Clare Cavanagh , Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West
2011: Geoff Dyer , Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
2012: Marina Warner , Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
2013: Franco Moretti , Distant Reading
2014: Ellen Willis , The Essential Ellen Willis
2015: Maggie Nelson , The Argonauts
2016: Carol Anderson , White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
2017: Carina Chocano , You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages
2018: Zadie Smith , Feel Free: Essays
2019: Saidiya Hartman , Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Stories of Social Upheaval

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award

Lifetime Achievement Award named for the first President of the National Book Critics Circle

1982: Leslie A. Marchand
1984: Library of America
1987: Robert Giroux
1989: James Laughlin
1990: Donald Keene
1992: Gregory Rabassa
1994: William Maxwell
1995: Alfred Kazin , Elizabeth Hardwick
1996: Albert Murray
1997: Leslie Fiedler
1999: Pauline Kael , Lawrence Ferlinghetti
2000: Barney Rosset
2001: Jason Epstein
2002: Richard Howard
2003: Studs Terkel
2004: Louis Rubin Jr.
2005: Bill Henderson
2006: John Leonard
2007: Emilie Buchwald
2008: PEN American Center
2009: Joyce Carol Oates
2010: Dalkey Archive Press
2011: Robert B. Silvers
2012: Sandra Gilbert , Susan Gubar
2013: Rolando Hinojosa-Smith
2014: Toni Morrison
2015: Wendell Berry
2016: Margaret Atwood
2017: John McPhee
2018: Arte Público Press
2019: Naomi Shihab Nye

John Leonard Prize

Award for a first work, first awarded in 2013, named after the critic John Leonard

2013: Anthony Marra , A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
2014: Phil Klay , redeployment
2015: Kirstin Valdez Quade , Night at the Fiestas
2016: Yaa Gyasi , homegoing
2017: Carmen Maria Machado , Her Body and Other Parties
2018: Tommy Orange , There There
2019: Sarah M. Broom The Yellow House

Web links

http://bookcritics.org/awards/